Construction of the Great Observatories M101 Image

These steps combine data from NASA's three Great Observatories into a single color composite image. At the left are separate images from three different regions of infrared light from the Spitzer Space Telescope, three images from different regions of visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope, and three different regions of x-ray light from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The three images from each observatory are combined into a single black and white image representing the light from that part of the spectrum. Each of these images is assigned a color: red for infrared light, yellow for visible light, and blue for x-ray light. These three separate color images can blend together to see the light from a very broad range of light energy in one image.

About the data

Spitzer data: The science team for the Spitzer data include K. Gordon (STScI), C. Engelbracht, G. Rieke, K. Misselt, and J.-D. Smith (University of Arizona), and R. Kennicutt (University of Cambridge).

Hubble data: This image was created from HST data from the following proposals: 9490 : K. Kuntz (Johns Hopkins University) 9492 : F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii) 5210 : J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) 5397 : J. Mould (NOAO) 6829 : Y.-C. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) The Hubble exposures have been superimposed onto ground-based images, visible at the edge of the image, taken at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, and at the 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Arizona.

Chandra data: The science team was led by K. Kuntz (Johns Hopkins University).