A home for old stars

Esahubble_potw1550a_1024

esahubble_potw1550a December 14th, 2015

Credit: NASA & ESA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

This image, taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 on board the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows the globular cluster Terzan 1. Lying around 20 000 light-years from us in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), it is one of about 150 globular clusters belonging to our galaxy, the Milky Way. Typical globular clusters are collections of around a hundred thousand stars, held together by their mutual gravitational attraction in a spherical shape a few hundred light-years across. It is thought that every galaxy has a population of globular clusters. Some, like the Milky Way, have a few hundred, while giant elliptical galaxies can have several thousand. They contain some of the oldest stars in a galaxy, hence the reddish colours of the stars in this image the bright blue ones are foreground stars, not part of the cluster. The ages of the stars in the globular cluster tell us that they were formed during the early stages of galaxy formation! Studying them can also help us to understand how galaxies formed. Terzan 1, like many globular clusters, is a source of X-rays. It is likely that these X-rays come from binary star systems that contain a dense neutron star and a normal star. The neutron star drags material from the companion star, causing a burst of X-ray emission. The system then enters a quiescent phase in which the neutron star cools, giving off X-ray emission with different characteristics, before enough material from the companion builds up to trigger another outburst.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1550a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
ESO 455-23 Terzan 1
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1550a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 35m 47.5s
DEC = -30° 28’ 56.6”
Orientation
North is 45.8° CW
Field of View
1.8 x 1.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Scorpius
Esahubble_potw1550a_1280
×
ID
potw1550a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
ESO 455-23, Terzan 1
Credits
NASA & ESA, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
Release Date
2015-12-14T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1550a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Instrument
Color Assignment
Band
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
263.948099917, -30.4823928616
Reference Dimension
1079.0, 920.0
Reference Pixel
539.5, 460.0
Scale
-2.77670988264e-05, 2.77670988264e-05
Rotation
-45.800000000000033
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
potw1550a
Metadata Date
2015-08-28T13:00:17+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
×

 

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

Providers | Sign In