||2001 News Releases
Hubble Eyes Giant Star Factory in Neighboring Galaxy
December 6, 2001
Resembling curling flames from a campfire, a magnificent nebula in a nearby galaxy observed by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope provides new insight into the fierce birth of stars as it may have occurred in the early universe.
The picture, taken by Hubble's Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, is online
at http://heritage.stsci.edu and http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2001/39 and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wfpc . The camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
The glowing gas cloud, called Hubble-V, has a diameter of about 200 light-years. A faint tail of gas and dust trailing off the top of the image sits opposite a dense cluster of bright stars at the bottom of the irregularly shaped nebula. Hubble's resolution and ultraviolet sensitivity reveal a dense knot of dozens of ultra-hot stars nestled in the nebula. Each star glows 100,000 times brighter than our Sun. These 4-million-year-old stars, considered youthful in the cosmic time scale, are too distant and crowded together to be resolved from ground-based telescopes. The small, irregular host galaxy, called NGC 6822, is one of the Milky Way's closest neighbors. It lies 1.6 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius.
The Hubble-V image data was taken by two science teams: C. Robert O'Dell
of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn. and collaborators, and Luciana Bianchi of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., and Osservatorio Astronomico, Torinese, Italy, and collaborators. This color image was produced by the Hubble Heritage Team at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Additional information about the Hubble Space Telescope is available at http://hubble.stsci.edu. More information about the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 is available at http://wfpc2.jpl.nasa.gov
Credits: NASA, ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: C. R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University) and L. Bianchi (Johns Hopkins University and Osservatorio Astronomico, Torinese, Italy)
NOTE TO BROADCASTERS: A video file to accompany this release will air on NASA Television on Oct. 31, Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. A live satellite interview opportunity with JPL robotics engineer Brian Wilcox is available via NASA Television on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 3-7 p.m. EST. To book an interview, call Jack Dawson at (818) 354-0040. For NASA Television schedule information see http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/breaking.html .
Contacts: JPL/Jane Platt (818) 354-0880
Space Telescope Science Institute/Ray Villard (410) 338-4514