A heavy-metal home

Esahubble_potw1622a_1024

esahubble_potw1622a May 30th, 2016

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)

This 10.5-billion-year-old globular cluster, NGC 6496, is home to heavy-metal stars of a celestial kind! The stars comprising this spectacular spherical cluster are enriched with much higher proportions of metals elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, are in astronomy curiously known as metals than stars found in similar clusters. A handful of these high-metallicity stars are also variable stars, meaning that their brightness fluctuates over time. NGC 6496 hosts a selection of long-period variables giant pulsating stars whose brightness can take up to, and even over, a thousand days to change and short-period eclipsing binaries, which dim when eclipsed by a stellar companion. The nature of the variability of these stars can reveal important information about their mass, radius, luminosity, temperature, composition, and evolution, providing astronomers with measurements that would be difficult or even impossible to obtain through other methods. NGC 6496 was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop. The cluster resides at about 35 000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion).

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1622a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 6496
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw1622a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 17h 59m 3.2s
DEC = -44° 16’ 7.6”
Orientation
North is 4.1° CW
Field of View
2.8 x 2.7 arcminutes
Constellation
Scorpius

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (ACS) Infrared (I) 814.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 606.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Optical (B) 438.0 nm
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (U) 336.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Blue
Cyan
Cyan
Esahubble_potw1622a_1280
×
ID
potw1622a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
NGC 6496
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla)
Release Date
2016-05-30T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1622a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
ACS, ACS, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Red, Blue, Cyan, Cyan
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical, Ultraviolet
Bandpass
I, V, B, U
Central Wavelength
814, 606, 438, 336
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
269.763356633, -44.268771472
Reference Dimension
4259.0, 4035.0
Reference Pixel
2129.5, 2017.5
Scale
-1.09839653903e-05, 1.09839653903e-05
Rotation
-4.1399999999999775
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
potw1622a
Metadata Date
2016-02-07T10:46:38+01:00
Metadata Version
1.1
×

 

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

Providers | Sign In