SAGE MIPS 24 Micron Catalog: Infrared Sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud

The Spitzer Space Telescope Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud Legacy Project Surveying the Agents of a Galaxy's Evolution (SAGE) traces the life cycle of observable matter. The catalog contains over 6 million sources, including approximately 150,000 evolved stars and 50,000 young stellar objects, observed at 24 microns. It was produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Modeling the lifecycle of matter in galaxies based on the catalog's identified evolved stars and young stellar objects.
• Analyzing the physical processes of the interstellar medium based on diffuse medium data with column densities > 1.2×10^21 cm^-2.
• Identifying and studying point-like infrared sources based on the correlation and signal-to-noise criteria described.
• Searching for potential counterparts to known astronomical objects using the full list of extracted sources.

Strengths

• Contains over 6 million sources, providing a large-scale view of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
• Includes approximately 150,000 evolved stars and 50,000 young stellar objects, enabling population studies.
• Sources were filtered with quality criteria, including a correlation value threshold and signal-to-noise >5.
• The estimated error rate for unreliable sources in the final catalog is less than 1%.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The description notes the final catalogs likely have a few remaining unreliable sources.
• A small number of sources with 24 µm magnitudes between 4 and 8 were removed due to investigation into edge effects.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Observational data from the Spitzer Space Telescope's SAGE Legacy Project.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 18:16:19.508781; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Large Magellanic Cloud