True blue

Esahubble_potw1524a_1024

esahubble_potw1524a June 15th, 2015

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image shows a galaxy known as UGC 11411. It is a galaxy type known as an irregular blue compact dwarf (BCD) galaxy. BCD galaxies are about a tenth of the size of a typical spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way, and are made up of large clusters of hot, massive stars that ionise the surrounding gas with their intense radiation. Because these stars are so hot they glow brightly with a blue hue, giving galaxies like UGC 11411 their characteristic blue tint. With these massive stars being less than 10 million years old, they are very young compared to stellar standards. They were created during a starburst, a galaxy-wide episode of furious star formation. UGC 11411 in particular has an extremely high star formation rate, even for a BCD galaxy. Unusually for galaxies with such intense star-forming regions, BCDs dont contain either a lot of dust, or the heavy elements that are typically found as trace elements in recently formed stars, making their composition very similar to that of the material from which the first stars formed in the early Universe. Because of this astronomers consider BCD galaxies to be good objects to study to improve our understanding of primordial star-forming processes. The bright stars in the image are foreground stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1524a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
UGC 11411
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Size > Dwarf
Esahubble_potw1524a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 19h 8m 42.8s
DEC = 70° 16’ 58.4”
Orientation
North is 48.4° CCW
Field of View
3.3 x 1.7 arcminutes
Constellation
Draco

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Orange Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Orange
Cyan
Esahubble_potw1524a_1280
×
ID
potw1524a
Subject Category
C.5.2.2  
Subject Name
UGC 11411
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2015-06-15T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1524a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Orange, Cyan
Band
Infrared, Optical
Bandpass
I, V
Central Wavelength
814, 606
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
287.178293866, 70.2828837485
Reference Dimension
3933.0, 2029.0
Reference Pixel
1966.0, 1014.0
Scale
-1.39179594095e-05, 1.39179594095e-05
Rotation
48.399999999999871
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
potw1524a
Metadata Date
2014-09-29T17:28:57+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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