Head in the Clouds

Esahubble_potw2249a_1024

esahubble_potw2249a December 5th, 2022

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, G. De Marchi

A small portion of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is pictured in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The SMC is a dwarf galaxy and one of the Milky Way’s nearest neighbours, lying only about 200 000 light-years from Earth. It makes a pair with the Large Magellanic Cloud, and both objects can be seen from the southern hemisphere, as well as from some northern latitudes. The Small Magellanic Cloud contains hundreds of millions of stars, but this image focuses on just a small fraction of them. These stars comprise the open cluster NGC 376, which has a total mass only about 3400 times that of the Sun. Open clusters, as the name suggests, are loosely bound and sparsely populated. This distinguishes open clusters from globular clusters, which are often so thronged with stars that they have a continuous blur of starlight at their centres. In the case of NGC 376, individual stars can be picked out clearly even in the most densely populated parts of this image. The data in this image come from two different astronomical investigations which relied on two of Hubble’s instruments: the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The first investigation used the ACS to explore a handful of star clusters in the Small Magellanic Cloud and help astronomers explore topics including the abundance of low- and high-mass stars in different environments. The second investigation used both the WFC3 and ACS, and aimed to answer fundamental questions about the lives of stars and help astronomers understand precisely where, when, why and how stars form. [Image description: A large number of bright stars, each with a cross-shape extending from its centre. In the centre there is a dense collection of foreground stars. Five are orange and the rest are blue. The black background is filled with small stars — most of them, however, larger than a single point.] Links Video of Head in the Clouds

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw2249a/

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 376
Esahubble_potw2249a_128
 

Position Details

Position (ICRS)
RA = 1h 3m 53.6s
DEC = -72° 49’ 27.8”
Orientation
North is 26.7° CCW
Field of View
2.2 x 1.5 arcminutes
Constellation
Tucana

Color Mapping

  Telescope Spectral Band Wavelength
Red Hubble (WFC3) Optical (N II) 658.0 nm
Orange Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Green Hubble (ACS) Optical (I) 814.0 nm
Blue Hubble (ACS) Optical (V) 555.0 nm
Spectrum_base
Red
Orange
Green
Green
Blue
Esahubble_potw2249a_1280
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ID
potw2249a
Subject Category
Subject Name
NGC 376
Credits
ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Nota, G. De Marchi
Release Date
2022-12-05T06:00:00
Lightyears
Redshift
Reference Url
https://esahubble.org/images/potw2249a/
Type
Observation
Image Quality
Distance Notes
Facility
Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
Instrument
WFC3, ACS, ACS, ACS, ACS
Color Assignment
Red, Orange, Green, Green, Blue
Band
Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical
Bandpass
N II, I, V, I, V
Central Wavelength
658, 814, 555, 814, 555
Start Time
Integration Time
Dataset ID
None, None, None, None, None
Notes
Coordinate Frame
ICRS
Equinox
J2000
Reference Value
15.973483626557671, -72.82437985954255
Reference Dimension
2682.0, 1840.0
Reference Pixel
1341.0, 920.0
Scale
-1.390697045260141e-05, 1.390697045260141e-05
Rotation
26.719999999999985
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
potw2249a
Metadata Date
2022-11-28T22:03:13+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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