Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 image details star birth in galaxy M83

Esahubble_opo0929b_1024

esahubble_opo0929b November 5th, 2009

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

The spectacular new camera installed on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope during Servicing Mission 4 in May has delivered the most detailed view of star birth in the graceful, curving arms of the nearby spiral galaxy M83. Nicknamed the Southern Pinwheel, M83 is undergoing more rapid star formation than our own Milky Way galaxy, especially in its nucleus. The sharp "eye" of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) has captured hundreds of young star clusters, ancient swarms of globular star clusters, and hundreds of thousands of individual stars, mostly blue supergiants and red supergiants. The image, taken in August 2009, provides a close-up view of the myriad stars near the galaxy's core, the bright whitish region at far right. WFC3's broad wavelength range, from ultraviolet to near-infrared, reveals stars at different stages of evolution, allowing astronomers to dissect the galaxy's star-formation history. The image reveals in unprecedented detail the current rapid rate of star birth in this famous "grand design" spiral galaxy. The newest generations of stars are forming largely in clusters on the edges of the dark dust lanes, the backbone of the spiral arms. These fledgling stars, only a few million years old, are bursting out of their dusty cocoons and producing bubbles of reddish glowing hydrogen gas. The excavated regions give a colourful "Swiss cheese" appearance to the spiral arm. Gradually, the young stars' fierce winds (streams of charged particles) blow away the gas, revealing bright blue star clusters. These stars are about 1 million to 10 million years old. The older populations of stars are not as blue. A bar of stars, gas, and dust slicing across the core of the galaxy may be instigating most of the star birth in the galaxy's core. The bar funnels material to the galaxy's centre, where the most active star formation is taking place. The brightest star clusters reside along an arc near the core. The remains of about 60 supernova blasts, the deaths of massive stars, can be seen in the image, five times more than known previously in this region. WFC3 identified the remnants of exploded stars. By studying these remnants, astronomers can better understand the nature of the progenitor stars, which are responsible for the creation and dispersal of most of the galaxy's heavy elements. M83, located in the Southern Hemisphere, is often compared to M51, dubbed the Whirlpool galaxy, in the Northern Hemisphere. Located 15 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra, M83 is two times closer to Earth than M51.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0929b/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
M83 Messier 83
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_opo0929b_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 13h 37m 4.5s
DEC = -29° 51’ 39.9”
Orientation
North is 8.4° CCW
Field of View
2.6 x 2.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Hydra

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (H-alpha) 657.0 nm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Optical (OIII) 502.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (U) 336.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Red
Green
Blue
Blue
Esahubble_opo0929b_1280
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ID
opo0929b
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
M83, Messier 83
Credits
NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Release Date
2009-11-05T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0929b/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Red, Red, Green, Blue, Blue
Band
Optical, Infrared, Optical, Optical, Ultraviolet
Bandpass
H-alpha, I, V, OIII, U
Central Wavelength
657, 814, 555, 502, 336
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
204.2689475, -29.861076
Reference Dimension
3909.0, 3930.0
Reference Pixel
1955.5, 1966.0
Scale
-1.11163e-05, 1.1116318e-05
Rotation
8.41
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
WCS info from NASA/Hubble
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
opo0929b
Metadata Date
2009-11-05T16:50:04+01:00
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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