The secret of stellar youth

Esahubble_potw1104a_1024

esahubble_potw1104a January 24th, 2011

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a clear view of the unusual globular cluster Palomar 1, whose youthful beauty is a puzzle for astronomers. This faint and sparse object is very different from the more familiar brilliant and very rich globular clusters and had to wait until 1954 for its discovery by George Abell on photographs from the Palomar Schmidt telescope. Globular clusters are tightly bound conglomerations of stars, which are found in the outer reaches of the Milky Way, in its so-called halo. They are amongst the oldest objects in a galaxy, containing very old stars and no gas, which means there is no possibility of newborn stars introducing some fresh blood into the cluster. However, at 6.3 to 8 billion years old, Palomar 1 is a youngster in globular cluster terms little more than half the age of most the other globulars in our Milky Way, which formed during our galaxys violent early history. However, astronomers suspect that globular youngsters, such as Palomar 1, formed in a more sedate manner. Possibly a gas cloud meandered around in the Milky Ways halo until a trigger kick-started star formation. Another possibility is that the Milky Way captured the stellar group; perhaps it was adrift in the Universe before it was gravitationally attracted to our galaxy, or maybe it had a violent beginning after all and is the remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was devoured by the Milky Way. Behind the sparsely populated Palomar 1 several background galaxies are seen and a few nearby bright foreground Milky Way stars are also visible. Together with Palomar 1 these objects make up an attractive family portrait. This picture was created from images taken with the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys. Images through orange (F606W, coloured blue) and near-infrared (F814W, coloured red) filters were combined. The exposure times were 1965 s per filter and the field of view is 3.0 arcminutes across.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1104a/

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 1
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1104a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 3h 33m 21.6s
DEC = 79° 34’ 52.7”
Orientation
North is 56.3° CW
Field of View
3.0 x 3.0 arcminutes
Constellation
Cepheus

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) -
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (Pseudogreen (V+I)) -
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) -
Esahubble_potw1104a_1280
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ID
potw1104a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
Palomar 1
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA
Release Date
2011-01-24T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1104a/
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, Pseudogreen (V+I), V
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
53.339919221, 79.5813019322
Reference Dimension
3573.0, 3538.0
Reference Pixel
1786.0, 1769.0
Scale
-1.39266797488e-05, 1.39266797488e-05
Rotation
-56.2799999999999
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
potw1104a
Metadata Date
2011-01-13T03:55:24+01:00
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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