Hubble-Spitzer Color Mosaic of the Galactic Center

Stsci_2009-02a_1024

stsci_2009-02a January 5th, 2009

Credit: Credit for Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Credit for Spitzer image: NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech)

This composite color infrared image of the center of our Milky Way galaxy reveals a new population of massive stars and new details in complex structures in the hot ionized gas swirling around the central 300 light-years. This sweeping panorama is the sharpest infrared picture ever made of the Galactic core. It offers a nearby laboratory for how massive stars form and influence their environment in the often violent nuclear regions of other galaxies. This view combines the sharp imaging of the Hubble Space Telescope's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) with color imagery from a previous Spitzer Space Telescope survey done with its Infrared Astronomy Camera (IRAC). The Galactic core is obscured in visible light by intervening dust clouds, but infrared light penetrates the dust. The spatial resolution of the NICMOS image corresponds to 0.025 light-years at the distance of the Galactic core of 26,000 light-years. Hubble reveals details in objects as small as 20 times the size of our own solar system. The NICMOS mosaic image represents the largest piece of sky ever mapped for one NICMOS observing program. It was combined with a full-color Spitzer image to yield a color composite of the nuclear region. The picture measures 300 x 115 light-years. Outside the boundary of the NICMOS survey, the IRAC exposures (which are 1/10th as sharp) can be seen at wavelengths of 3.6 microns (shown as blue), 4.5 microns (shown as green), 5.8 microns (shown as orange), and 8.0 microns (shown as red). The new NICMOS data show the glow from ionized hydrogen gas as well as a multitude of stars. Hubble reveals an important population of stars with strong stellar winds, signified by excess emission from ionized gas at one infrared wavelength (1.87 microns) compared to another slightly different wavelength (1.90 microns). NICMOS shows a large number of these massive stars distributed throughout the region. A new finding is that astronomers now see that the massive stars are not confined to one of the three known clusters of massive stars in the Galactic Center, known as the Central cluster, the Arches cluster, and the Quintuplet cluster. These three clusters are easily seen as tight concentrations of bright, massive stars in the NICMOS image. The distributed stars may have formed in isolation, or they may have originated in clusters that have been disrupted by strong gravitational tidal forces. The winds and radiation from these stars form the complex structures seen in the core, and in some cases, they may be triggering new generations of stars. At upper left, large arcs of ionized gas are resolved into arrays of intriguingly organized linear filaments indicating perhaps a critical role of the influence of locally strong magnetic fields. The lower left region shows pillars of gas sculpted by winds from hot massive stars in the Quintuplet cluster. At the center of the image, ionized gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy is confined to a bright spiral embedded within a circum-nuclear dusty inner-tube-shaped torus. The NICMOS mosaic required 144 Hubble orbits to make 2,304 science exposures. It was taken between February 22 and June 5, 2008.

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-02

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: http://hubblesite.org/copyright/

Image Details

Image Type
Observation
Object Name
Galactic Center
Subject - Milky Way
Galaxy > Component > Center/Core

Distance

Universescale1
26,000 light years
Stsci_2009-02a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 23h 59m 46.1s
DEC = 0° 0’ 18.5”
Orientation
North is 0.3° CW
Field of View
20.4 x 9.6 arcminutes
Constellation
Pisces

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Blue Hubble (NICMOS) Infrared 3.6 µm
Green Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 4.5 µm
Orange Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 6.8 µm
Red Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared 8.0 µm
Red Spitzer (IRAC) Infrared -
Spectrum_xray1w
Blue
Green
Orange
Red
Stsci_2009-02a_1280
×
ID
2009-02a
Subject Category
B.5.4.9  
Subject Name
Galactic Center
Credits
Credit for Hubble image: NASA, ESA, and Q.D. Wang (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) Credit for Spitzer image: NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center/Caltech)
Release Date
2009-01-05T00:00:00
Lightyears
26,000
Redshift
26,000
Reference Url
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-02
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Good
Distance Notes
Distance in lightyears
Facility
Hubble, SST, SST, SST, SST
Instrument
NICMOS, IRAC, IRAC, IRAC, IRAC
Color Assignment
Blue, Green, Orange, Red, Red
Band
Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared, Infrared
Bandpass
Central Wavelength
3600, 4500, 6800, 8000, -
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
2000.0
Reference Value
359.94197000000, -0.00513722189
Reference Dimension
6149.00, 2902.00
Reference Pixel
4860.15314534014, 1524.33538049291
Scale
-0.00005538392, 0.00005538392
Rotation
-0.27203745189
Coordinate System Projection:
TAN
Quality
Full
FITS Header
Notes
World Coordinate System resolved using PinpointWCS 0.9.2 revision 218+ by the Chandra X-ray Center
Creator (Curator)
STScI
URL
http://hubblesite.org
Name
Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach
Email
outreach@stsci.edu
Telephone
410-338-4444
Address
3700 San Martin Drive
City
Baltimore
State/Province
MD
Postal Code
21218
Country
USA
Rights
http://hubblesite.org/copyright/
Publisher
STScI
Publisher ID
stsci
Resource ID
STSCI-H-p0902a-f-6149x2902.tif
Resource URL
https://mast.stsci.edu/api/latest/Download/file?uri=mast:OPO/product/STSCI-H-p0902a-f-6149x2902.tif
Related Resources
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2009/02
Metadata Date
2022-07-06T00:00:00
Metadata Version
1.2
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Detailed color mapping information coming soon...

×
Universescalefull
26,000 light years

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