SAGE-SMC: Infrared Photometry Archive of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Spitzer Space Telescope's SAGE-SMC project mapped the Small Magellanic Cloud at two epochs separated by 3 to 9 months to remove imaging artifacts and constrain source variability. The archive contains source fluxes with fewer nulled wavelengths than the project's stricter catalog, though these additions have more uncertainty. This data was produced by NASA and last updated in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Identify and analyze variable evolved stars and young stellar objects based on multi-epoch observations.
• Study galaxy evolution in a low-metallicity, tidally-disrupted environment using infrared photometry.
• Perform photometric analysis of sources with detections across IRAC bands [3.6um], [4.5um], [5.8um], and [8.0um].
• Compare source properties between the project's stricter catalog and the more inclusive archive.

Strengths

• Observations from two epochs separated by 3 (IRAC) and 9 (MIPS) months to constrain variability and remove artifacts.
• Sources must meet specific signal-to-noise thresholds (greater than [5, 5, 5, 7]) for inclusion in the related catalog.
• Includes data from the S3MC pathfinder survey of the inner 3 square degrees of the SMC, processed with consistent software.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Archive sources have more uncertainty associated with them compared to the project's catalog.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Spitzer Space Telescope SAGE-SMC project.

Collection Method

Infrared photometry from the Spitzer Space Telescope's IRAC and MIPS instruments, reduced with specialized software.

Time Range

Observations from two distinct epochs (Epochs 1 and 2), plus an earlier pathfinder survey (Epoch 0).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 17:52:29.393001; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.