A Pocketful of Stars

Esahubble_potw2036a_1024

esahubble_potw2036a September 7th, 2020

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai

Many colourful stars are packed close together in this image of the globular cluster NGC 1805, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This tight grouping of thousands of stars is located near the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way. The stars orbit closely to one another, like bees swarming around a hive. In the dense centre of one of these clusters, stars are 100 to 1000 times closer together than the nearest stars are to our Sun, making planetary systems around them unlikely. The striking difference in star colours is illustrated beautifully in this image, which combines two different types of light: blue stars, shining brightest in near-ultraviolet light, and red stars, illuminated in red and near-infrared. Space telescopes like Hubble can observe in the ultraviolet because they are positioned above Earths atmosphere, which absorbs most of this wavelength, making it inaccessible to ground-based facilities. This young globular cluster can be seen from the southern hemisphere, in the Dorado constellation, which is Portugese for dolphinfish. Usually, globular clusters contain stars which are born at the same time; however, NGC 1805 is unusual as it appears to host two different populations of stars with ages millions of years apart. Observing such clusters of stars can help astronomers understand how stars evolve, and what factors determine whether they end their lives as white dwarfs, or explode as supernovae.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2036a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
NGC 1805
Subject - Milky Way
Star > Grouping > Cluster > Globular
Esahubble_potw2036a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 5h 2m 20.9s
DEC = -66° 6’ 58.4”
Orientation
North is 177.7° CCW
Field of View
2.6 x 2.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Dorado

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (WFC3) Ultraviolet (UV) 225.0 nm
Green Hubble (WFC3) Optical (U) 336.0 nm
Orange Hubble (WFC3) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (NII) 658.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Blue
Green
Orange
Red
Esahubble_potw2036a_1280
×
ID
potw2036a
Subject Category
B.3.6.4.2  
Subject Name
NGC 1805
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai
Release Date
2020-09-07T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2036a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, WFC3, WFC3, WFC3
Color Assignment
Blue, Green, Orange, Red
Band
Ultraviolet, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
UV, U, I, NII
Central Wavelength
225, 336, 814, 658
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
75.5871672962, -66.1162306376
Reference Dimension
3930.0, 3815.0
Reference Pixel
1965.0, 1907.5
Scale
-1.09976386624e-05, 1.09976386624e-05
Rotation
177.6999999999999
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
ESA/Hubble
URL
https://esahubble.org
Name
Email
Telephone
Address
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
United States
Rights
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Publisher
ESA/Hubble
Publisher ID
esahubble
Resource ID
potw2036a
Metadata Date
2020-03-12T14:17:58+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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