Panta rhei motion in the Milky Way

Esahubble_potw1507a_1024

esahubble_potw1507a February 16th, 2015

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Panta rhei is a simplified version of the famous greek philosopher Heraclitus' teachings. It basically means, everything flows. And everything in the Universe is indeed continually on the move, spiralling and shifting through space. Some cosmic objects move a little further than others take the subject of this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image, a globular cluster of stars known as Palomar 12. Although it currently lies on the outskirts of the Milky Ways halo, Palomar 12 was not born here. When astronomers first studied this cluster, they were puzzled by its strangely young age when compared to the other clusters in the galaxy. It appeared to be around 30% younger than other Milky Way globulars. Surely if it had been born within our galaxy, it would have sprung to life at a similar time to its cluster companions? A bit more digging revealed that Palomar 12 was actually ripped from its initial home, the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical galaxy, around 1.7 billion years ago via tidal interactions between its former home and our galaxy. The dwarf galaxy that Palomar 12 once called home is a satellite galaxy to ours, and closely orbits around us even occasionally passing through the plane of our galaxy. In fact, it is being slowly torn apart and consumed by the Milky Way. The sparkling stars in this picture were imaged by Hubbles Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1507a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Palomar 12
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1507a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 21h 46m 38.2s
DEC = -21° 15’ 6.0”
Orientation
North is 26.4° CCW
Field of View
3.1 x 3.4 arcminutes
Constellation
Capricornus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1507a_1280
×
ID
potw1507a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
Palomar 12
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2015-02-16T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1507a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Optical, Infrared
Bandpass
V, I
Central Wavelength
606, 814
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
326.659092524, -21.2516597488
Reference Dimension
3730.0, 4070.0
Reference Pixel
1865.0, 2035.0
Scale
-1.38953546551e-05, 1.38953546551e-05
Rotation
26.359999999999978
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
potw1507a
Metadata Date
2014-07-22T07:25:32+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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