Young stars sculpt gas with powerful outflows
esahubble_heic0514a November 10th, 2005
Credit: NASA, ESA and A. Nota (ESA/STScI, STScI/AURA)
This Hubble Space Telescope view shows one of the most dynamic and intricately detailed star-forming regions in space, located 210,000 light-years away in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. At the centre of the region is a brilliant star cluster called NGC 346. A dramatic structure of arched, ragged filaments with a distinct ridge surrounds the cluster. A torrent of radiation from the hot stars in the cluster NGC 346, at the centre of this Hubble image, eats into denser areas around it, creating a fantasy sculpture of dust and gas. The dark, intricately beaded edge of the ridge, seen in silhouette, is particularly dramatic. It contains several small dust globules that point back towards the central cluster, like windsocks caught in a gale.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0514a/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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Image Details
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- heic0514a
- Subject Category
- C.3.6.4 C.4.1.2
- Subject Name
- N66, NGC 346
- Credits
- NASA, ESA and A. Nota (ESA/STScI, STScI/AURA)
- Release Date
- 2005-11-10T19:00:00
- Lightyears
- Redshift
- Reference Url
- https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0514a/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope
- Instrument
- ACS, ACS, ACS
- Color Assignment
- Red, Green, Blue
- Band
- Optical, Infrared, Optical
- Bandpass
- H-alpha, I, V
- Central Wavelength
- 658, 814, 555
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 14.7800519925, -72.1747567782
- Reference Dimension
- 3221.0, 3761.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1611.5, 1881.5
- Scale
- -1.38978111096e-05, 1.38978111096e-05
- Rotation
- -181.16320083902832
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- Data is calculated based on Simbad coordinates! Using this image as an overlay on a DSS background, a 5 arcsec (or so) difference is expected to be seen!
- Creator (Curator)
- ESA/Hubble
- URL
- http://www.spacetelescope.org/
- Name
- 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
- ESA/Hubble
- Publisher ID
- esahubble
- Resource ID
- heic0514a
- Resource URL
- http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/original/heic0514a.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2005-11-08T18:13:07+01:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.0
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
