Tiny galaxies brimming with star birth

Esahubble_heic1117a_1024

esahubble_heic1117a November 10th, 2011

Credit: NASA, ESA, A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), H. Ferguson and A. Koekemoer (Space Telescope Science Institute), and the CANDELS team

This image reveals 18 tiny galaxies uncovered by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The puny galaxies, shown in the postage-stamp-sized images, existed 9 billion years ago and are brimming with star birth. The dwarf galaxies are typically a hundred times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy but are churning out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar population would double in just 10 million years. Hubbles Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys spied the galaxies in a field called the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS). The galaxies' locations in the GOODS field are marked in the large image. The galaxies stood out in the Hubble images because the energy from all the new stars caused the oxygen in the gas surrounding them to light up like a bright fluorescent sign. The rapid star birth likely represents an important phase in the formation of dwarf galaxies, the most common galaxy type in the cosmos. The galaxies are among 69 dwarf galaxies found in the GOODS and other fields. Images of the individual galaxies were taken November 2010 to January 2011. The large image showing the location of the galaxies was taken between September 2002 and December 2004, and between September 2009 and October 2009.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1117a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
GOODS South Field
Subject - Distant Universe
Cosmology > Morphology > Deep Field

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (Near-IR) 980.0 nm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (H) 1.3 µm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (K) 1.6 µm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (R) 606.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 775.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (z) 850.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (Near-IR) 980.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (Mid-UV) 225.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (Mid-UV) 275.0 nm
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (Mid-UV) 336.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Red
Red
Green
Green
Green
Green
Blue
Blue
Blue
Blue
Esahubble_heic1117a_1280
×
ID
heic1117a
Subject Category
D.6.1.1  
Subject Name
GOODS South Field
Credits
NASA, ESA, A. van der Wel (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), H. Ferguson and A. Koekemoer (Space Telescope Science Institute), and the CANDELS team
Release Date
2011-11-10T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1117a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Red, Red, Green, Green, Green, Green, Blue, Blue, Blue, Blue
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Optical, Optical, Infrared, Infrared, Ultraviolet, Ultraviolet, Ultraviolet, Optical
Bandpass
Near-IR, H, K, R, I, z, Near-IR, Mid-UV, Mid-UV, Mid-UV, B
Central Wavelength
980, 1250, 1600, 606, 775, 850, 980, 225, 275, 336, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
Equinox
Reference Value
Reference Dimension
3000.0, 3250.0
Reference Pixel
Scale
Rotation
Coordinate System Projection:
Quality
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
heic1117a
Metadata Date
2011-11-09T09:48:35+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

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