Grains of cosmic sand

Esahubble_opo0413d_1024

esahubble_opo0413d April 8th, 2004

Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)

Myriads of stars embedded in the heart of the nearby galaxy NGC 300 can be singled out like grains of sand on a beach in this Hubble Space Telescope image. The Hubble telescope's exquisite resolution enables it to see the stars as individual points of light, despite the fact that the galaxy is millions of light-years away. NGC 300 is a spiral galaxy similar to our own Milky Way galaxy. It is a member of a nearby group of galaxies known as the Sculptor group, named for the southern constellation where the group can be found. The distance to NGC 300 is 6.5 million light-years, making it one of the Milky Way's closer neighbors. At this distance, only the brightest stars can be picked out from ground-based images. With a resolution some 10 times better than ground-based telescopes, Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) resolves many more stars in this galaxy than can be detected from the ground. The colour composite was made from filtered images taken in blue, green, and infrared light. Hot, young blue stars appear in clusters that form in the galaxy's spiral arms. Ribbons of deep red stars mark the location of gauzy curtains of dust that partially hide the light of the stars behind them. Near the center of the image is the bright and compact nucleus of the galaxy where even the ACS loses the ability to separate the densely packed stars. The individual exposures that were combined to make this new image were taken in July and September 2002. These Hubble data are being used to test a new method for measuring distances to galaxies and to compare it with the more traditional methods, such as the period-luminosity relationship of pulsating stars known as Cepheid variables. Measuring distances is a perpetual but important concern for astronomers. Some of the luminous blue specks in this image, young and massive stars called blue supergiants, are among the brightest stars seen in spiral galaxies like NGC 300. By combining the stellar brightness with other information, such as the stellar temperature, surface gravity and mass outflow, astronomers are defining a new technique to measure distances to galaxies located millions of light-years away.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0413d/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
IRAS 00525-3757 NGC 300
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Esahubble_opo0413d_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 0h 54m 53.7s
DEC = -37° 40’ 8.7”
Orientation
North is 204.3° CCW
Field of View
1.5 x 0.7 arcminutes
Constellation
Sculptor

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (B) 435.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Green
Blue
Esahubble_opo0413d_1280
×
ID
opo0413d
Subject Category
C.5.1.1  
Subject Name
IRAS 00525-3757, NGC 300
Credits
NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI)
Release Date
2004-04-08T15:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo0413d/
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, V, B
Central Wavelength
814, 555, 435
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
13.723780761, -37.6690788433
Reference Dimension
1831.0, 882.0
Reference Pixel
915.5, 441.0
Scale
-1.38562269758e-05, 1.38562269758e-05
Rotation
204.29999999999953
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
opo0413d
Metadata Date
2004-03-31T13:26:57-05:00
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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