[podcast] Swift Sees Andromeda in a New Light

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There’s more to the universe than meets the eye – or at least our eyes, which can only detect the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum. We can see just a small fraction of the light emitted by the universe. This is why we have satellites that can observe different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum – they each provide us a different piece of the puzzle.

Scientist Dr. Stefan Immler was part of a team that captured a new and unique view of one of our closest galactic neighbors with the Swift satellite, which has the ability to detect ultraviolet light. The Andromeda Galaxy, or M31, is a beautiful “nearby” spiral galaxy that is actually visible to the naked eye. We talked with Dr. Immler about what his team learned about the galaxy when Swift took a look in the UV.
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