Wild cosmic ducks

Esahubble_potw1912a_1024

esahubble_potw1912a March 25th, 2019

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al.

This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (The Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a V shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight. Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago. Open clusters tend to contain fewer and younger stars than their more compact globular cousins, and Messier 11 is no exception: at its centre lie many blue stars, the hottest and youngest of the clusters few thousand stellar residents. The lifespans of open clusters are also relatively short compared to those of globular ones; stars in open clusters are spread further apart and are thus not as strongly bound to each other by gravity, causing them to be more easily and quickly drawn away by stronger gravitational forces. As a result Messier 11 is likely to disperse in a few million years as its members are ejected one by one, pulled away by other celestial objects in the vicinity.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1912a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, None, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Messier 11
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Open
Esahubble_potw1912a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 18h 50m 51.7s
DEC = -6° 14’ 24.9”
Orientation
North is 42.8° CCW
Field of View
2.7 x 2.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Scutum

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Cyan Hubble (WFC3) Infrared (U) 336.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Cyan
Orange
Esahubble_potw1912a_1280
×
ID
potw1912a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.1  
Subject Name
Messier 11
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al.
Release Date
2019-03-25T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1912a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Cyan, Orange
Band
Infrared, Optical
Bandpass
U, V
Central Wavelength
336, 555
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
282.715552914, -6.2402392881
Reference Dimension
4078.0, 3914.0
Reference Pixel
2039.0, 1957.0
Scale
-1.10129178852e-05, 1.10129178852e-05
Rotation
42.820000000000007
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
None
Postal Code
D-85748
Country
Germany
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw1912a
Metadata Date
2018-12-17T09:37:10+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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