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PIA11736: Silicates in Alien Asteroids
Target Name: GD 40
Mission: Spitzer Space Telescope
Spacecraft: Spitzer Space Telescope
Product Size: 3000 samples x 2400 lines
Produced By: California Institute of Technology
Producer ID: JPL 2009-001
Full-Res TIFF: PIA11736.tif (21.6 MB)
Full-Res JPEG: PIA11736.jpg (278.5 kB)

Click on the image to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original).

Original Caption Released with Image:

This plot of data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescopes shows that asteroid dust around a dead "white dwarf" star contains silicates—a common mineral on Earth. The data were taken primarily by Spitzer's infrared spectrograph, an instrument that breaks light apart into its basic constituents. The yellow dots show averaged data from the spectrograph, while the orange triangles show older data from Spitzer's infrared array camera. The white dwarf is called GD 40.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech


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