Old stars with a youthful glow

Esahubble_potw1107a_1024

esahubble_potw1107a February 14th, 2011

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The dazzling stars in Messier 15 look fresh and new in this image from the NASA/Hubble Space Telescope, but they are actually all roughly 13 billion years old, making them some of the most ancient objects in the Universe. Unlike another recent Hubble Picture of the Week, which featured the unusually sparse cluster Palomar 1, Messier 15 is rich and bright despite its age. Messier 15 is a globular cluster a spherical conglomeration of old stars that formed together from the same cloud of gas, found in the outer reaches of the Milky Way in a region known as the halo and orbiting the Galactic Centre. This globular lies about 35 000 light-years from the Earth, in the constellation of Pegasus (The Flying Horse). Messier 15 is one of the densest globulars known, with the vast majority of the clusters mass concentrated in the core. Astronomers think that particularly dense globulars, like this one, underwent a process called core collapse, in which gravitational interactions between stars led to many members of the cluster migrating towards the centre. Messier 15 is also the first globular cluster known to harbour a planetary nebula, and it is still one of only four globulars known to do so. The planetary nebula, called Pease 1, can be seen in this image as a small blue blob to the lower left of the globulars core. This picture was put together from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images through yellow/orange (F606W, coloured blue) and near-infrared (F814W, coloured red) filters were combined. The total exposure times were 535 s and 615 s respectively and the field of view is 3.4 arcminutes across.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1107a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 15
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1107a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 21h 29m 58.2s
DEC = 12° 10’ 0.6”
Orientation
North is 102.6° CCW
Field of View
3.4 x 3.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Pegasus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Esahubble_potw1107a_1280
×
ID
potw1107a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
Messier 15
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2011-02-14T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1107a/
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
322.492382143, 12.1668313348
Reference Dimension
4089.0, 4089.0
Reference Pixel
2044.0, 2044.0
Scale
-1.39089533044e-05, 1.39089533044e-05
Rotation
102.55999999999989
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
potw1107a
Metadata Date
2011-01-07T17:24:58+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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