Hiding in plain sight — the elusive Carina dwarf galaxy

Eso_potw1126a_1024

eso_potw1126a June 27th, 2011

Credit: ESO/G. Bono & CTIO

It’s one of the closest galaxies to Earth, but the Carina Dwarf Galaxy is so dim and diffuse that astronomers only discovered it in the 1970s. A companion galaxy of the Milky Way, this ball of stars shares features with both globular star clusters and much larger galaxies. Astronomers believe that dwarf spheroidal galaxies like the Carina Dwarf are very common in the Universe, but they are extremely difficult to observe. Their faintness and low star density mean that it is easy to simply see right through them. In this image, the Carina Dwarf appears as many faint stars scattered across most of the central part of the picture. It is hard to tell apart stars from the dwarf galaxy, foreground stars within the Milky Way and even faraway galaxies that poke through the gaps: the Carina Dwarf is a master of cosmic camouflage. The Carina Dwarf’s stars show an unusual spread of ages. They appear to have formed in a series of bursts, with quiet periods lasting several billion years in between them. It lies around 300 000 light-years from Earth, which places it further away than the Magellanic Clouds (the nearest galaxies to the Milky Way), but significantly closer to us than the Andromeda Galaxy, the closest spiral galaxy. So, despite being small for a galaxy, its proximity to Earth means that the Carina Dwarf appears quite large in the sky, just under half the size of the full Moon — albeit very much fainter. This makes it fit comfortably within the field of view of ESO’s Wide Field Imager, an instrument designed for making observations of large parts of the sky. Although this image in itself is not so striking, it is likely the best image of the Carina Dwarf Galaxy to date. The image was made using observations from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at La Silla, and from the Victor M. Blanco 4-metre telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.

Provider: European Southern Observatory

Image Source: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1126a/

Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Carina Dwarf Galaxy
Subject - Local Universe
Galaxy > Size > Dwarf
Eso_potw1126a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 6h 41m 36.7s
DEC = -50° 57’ 58.9”
Orientation
North is 0.2° CW
Field of View
31.4 x 26.2 arcminutes
Constellation
Carina

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Other (None) Infrared (I) -
Green MPG-2.2m (WFI) Optical (V) -
Blue Other (None) Optical (B) -
Blue MPG-2.2m (WFI) Optical (U) -
Eso_potw1126a_1280
×
ID
potw1126a
Subject Category
C.5.2.2  
Subject Name
Carina Dwarf Galaxy
Credits
ESO/G. Bono & CTIO
Release Date
2011-06-27T10:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1126a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Other, MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope, Other, MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope
Instrument
None, WFI, None, WFI
Color Assignment
Red, Green, Blue, Blue
Band
Infrared, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
I, V, B, U
Central Wavelength
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
100.403004, -50.966351
Reference Dimension
3771.0, 3145.0
Reference Pixel
1912.0208827, 1604.83664838
Scale
-0.0001388678, 0.0001388678
Rotation
-0.21387968329
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
Creator (Curator)
European Southern Observatory
URL
http://www.eso.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
European Southern Observatory
Publisher ID
eso
Resource ID
potw1126a
Metadata Date
2011-06-09T13:08:36+02:00
Metadata Version
1.1
×

 

Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×

There is no distance meta data in this image.

 

Providers | Sign In