NASA's new Spitzer Space Telescope has captured in stunning detail the spidery filaments and newborn stars of the Tarantula Nebula, a rich star-forming region also known as 30 Doradus. In this animation the infrared structures seen by this new observatory are compared with a visible light image from the ground-based European Southern Observatory (ESO) to highlight the power of Spitzer to see what other telescopes cannot.

This 22-second animation shows how our view of a dark globule in IC 1396 changes as we move from visible light through near-infrared to mid-infrared wavelengths. The dark globule is virtually opaque at visible-light wavelengths and becomes transparent in the near-infrared. A glowing stellar nursery, with never before seen protostars and young stars, is vividly revealed through mid-infrared images obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope.

This 18-second animation zooms in on Herbig-Haro 46/47 and its embedded protostar with molecular outflows. Spitzer/IRAC lifts the cosmic veil and transforms the dark and opaque cloud seen at visible light wavelengths to a spectacular view of a previously unseen protostar and its bipolar outflows.

This 22-second animation uses an "infrared spotlight" to highlight differences between a visible-light image of Messier 81 and the Spitzer/MIPS+IRAC infrared view.

A 12-second animation shows how ansae are created, by taking a model dust ring and tilting it from a face-on orientation to edge-on.