Stars of all ages are on show on this NASA/ESA Hubble Area Telescope picture of the glowing spiral galaxy referred to as NGC 6000, positioned 102 million light-years away within the constellation Scorpius.
NGC 6000 has a glowing yellow middle and glittering blue outskirts. These colours mirror variations within the common ages, plenty, and temperatures of the galaxy’s stars. On the coronary heart of the galaxy, the celebs are usually older and smaller. Much less huge stars are cooler than extra huge stars, and considerably counterintuitively, cooler stars are redder, whereas hotter stars are bluer. Farther out alongside NGC 6000’s spiral arms, good star clusters host younger, huge stars that seem distinctly blue.
Hubble collected the information for this picture whereas surveying the websites of latest supernova explosions in close by galaxies. NGC 6000 hosted two latest supernovae: SN 2007ch in 2007 and SN 2010as in 2010. Utilizing Hubble’s delicate detectors, researchers can discern the faint glow of supernovae years after the preliminary explosion. These observations assist constrain the plenty of supernovae progenitor stars and may point out if that they had any stellar companions.
By zooming in to the best facet of the galaxy’s disk on this picture, you possibly can see a set of 4 skinny yellow and blue traces. These traces are an asteroid in our photo voltaic system that was drifting throughout Hubble’s subject of view because it gazed at NGC 6000. The 4 traces are as a consequence of 4 totally different exposures recorded one after one other with slight pauses in between. Picture processors mixed these 4 exposures to create the ultimate picture. The traces seem dashed with alternating colours as a result of every publicity used a filter to gather very particular wavelengths of sunshine, on this case round purple and blue. Having these separate exposures of specific wavelengths is necessary to check and examine stars by their colours — but it surely additionally makes asteroid interlopers very apparent!
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Area Flight Middle, Greenbelt, MD
