Center of Dwarf Galaxy NGC 5253: Close-up View | Hubble

Center of Dwarf Galaxy NGC 5253: Close-up View | Hubble

This image depicts the center of the blue compact dwarf galaxy NGC 5253, as seen by the High Resolution Channel (HRC) of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

This is a wide view of the galaxy, comprising data from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) using the Wide Field Channel, as well as the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Here the dense clouds of gas and dust in the galaxy are in full view, illuminated by bright and hot star clusters, at the center of a vast array of stars. 

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) is a third-generation scientific instrument on Hubble, and was installed in 2002 as part of Servicing Mission 3B. It originally had three sub-instruments or “channels”: the Wide Field Channel (WFC), as its name and the name of ACS both suggest, is used to survey broad fields of distant and faint galaxies including the famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field, while the Solar Blind Channel is optimized for viewing ultraviolet light emitted by planets like Jupiter by blocking out sunlight. Both are still operational.

Distance: around 11 million light-years

Hubble's High Resolution Channel (HRC) was designed to take a close and extremely detailed look into the center of celestial objects like the centers of galaxies, star clusters and star-forming regions. Its high resolution allows astronomers to distinguish many stars in a small area, permitting them to examine dense regions in depth. NGC 5253, a starburst galaxy filled with extraordinary star clusters and continually forming stars, is a perfect target for ACS with HRC. This image shows the galaxy’s nucleus in detail, where super star clusters lurk amongst the dark dust clouds.

HRC was only operational for about five years, between ACS’s installation and electronics failures in 2007 that took it offline. While ACS was partially repaired in Hubble’s last servicing mission in 2009, HRC could not be restored. Close-in, high-resolution images of galaxy cores like this one are, therefore, something of a rarity.

High-res Image Description: The bright center of a galaxy. It is filled with stars, most of which are bright blue points. There are some star clusters that appear as larger shining dots surrounded closely by more stars. Clouds of gas and dust can be seen behind the galaxy core, where they are lit up and appear pink in color, and in front of it, where they block out some of its light and appear dark in color.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. D. Vacca

Release Date: June 24, 2024

#NASA #ESA #Astronomy #Space #Science #Hubble #Galaxies #Galaxy #NGC5253 #DwarfGalaxy #StarburstGalaxy #SSC #Centaurus #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #SpaceTelescope #HST #STScI #GSFC #UnitedStates #Europe #Infographic #STEM #Education