Stars in the tail of the Antennae

Esahubble_heic0812b_1024

esahubble_heic0812b May 9th, 2008

Credit: NASA, ESA & Ivo Saviane (European Southern Observatory)

The Hubble ACS image shows a portion of the southern tidal tail of the Antennae galaxies. The main visible component consists of young blue stars recently formed out of the gas accumulating along the spine of the tail, and many red background galaxies can also be seen. The region is also filled by thousands of faint red stars, just visible when zooming on the image. The Antennae Galaxies are among the closest known merging galaxies. The two galaxies, also known as NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, started to interact a few hundred million years ago, creating one of the most impressive sights in the night sky. They are considered by scientists as the archetypal merging galaxy system and are used as a standard with which to validate theories about galaxy evolution. By measuring the colours and brightnesses of red giant stars in the system, the scientists found that the Antennae Galaxies are much closer than previously thought: 45 million light-years instead of the previous best estimate of 65 million light-years. These red stars cannot be brighter than a certain threshold, and it is this luminosity threshold that was used to derive the new distance of the Antennae.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0812b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Antennae Galaxies NGC 4038 NGC 4039
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Interacting
Esahubble_heic0812b_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 12h 1m 27.5s
DEC = -18° 59’ 27.7”
Orientation
North is 26.1° CW
Field of View
3.3 x 3.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Corvus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Esahubble_heic0812b_1280
×
ID
heic0812b
Subject Category
C.5.1.7  
Subject Name
Antennae Galaxies, NGC 4038, NGC 4039
Credits
NASA, ESA & Ivo Saviane (European Southern Observatory)
Release Date
2008-05-09T12:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0812b/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, Pseudogreen (V+I), V
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
180.364409241, -18.9910204133
Reference Dimension
3930.0, 3841.0
Reference Pixel
1965.0, 1920.5
Scale
-1.38781244592e-05, 1.38781244592e-05
Rotation
-26.080000000000002
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
Karl-Schwarzschild-Strasse 2
City
Garching bei München
State/Province
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
heic0812b
Metadata Date
2008-05-08T10:58:40+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

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