A new image processing technique has yielded the clearest view yet of an extraordinary star cluster located about 169,000 light years from Earth. The new technique, called photometric reconstruction, was applied to a photograph of the star cluster Rl36 that was obtained with the Planetary Camera onboard the NASA Hubble Space Telescope. It reveals that there are at least 47 stars located within an area 1.6 light years across in Rl36. (One light year is approximately 5.8 trillion miles long.) In contrast, the Sun is about 4 light years from the nearest known star, Proxima Centauri.
"Our reconstructed photo of R136 shows what the raw Hubble photos will look like after the 1993 repair mission to fix the telescope's spherical aberration," says Goddard astronomer, Dr. Sally Heap.
Combining data from the Hubble photos with spectrograms of Rl36 obtained with the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph on the HST, Goddard scientists determined that many of the stars in R136 are much more massive than the Sun., and include one or more that have 100 times the mass of the Sun. Such stars have very short lifetimes, and the estimated age of the R136 star cluster is only 3 million years, which can be compared with the approximate age of the Sun, 5 billion years.
UPPER LEFT: a portion of a photograph of Rl36 taken by the Planetary Camera on HST in visible light at wavelength 5470 angstroms. This panel, 2 arcsec on the sky or 1.6 light years across at the distance of R136, shows the uncorrected image of the star cluster.
UPPER RIGHT: same picture, shown at the same contrast, but after photometric reconstruction. A total of 47 stars are present. This panel illustrates how pictures from Hubble will look after the first repair mission to Hubble.
BOTTOM: portion of the ultraviolet spectrum of R136 taken by the GHRS. It depicts the intensity of ultraviolet light at each wavelength. The strongest stellar feature (at right) was formed by triply-ionized carbon (carbon atoms that have each lost three of their six electrons) that are streaming out of the brightest stars in R13 in a flow called a "stellar wind."
Credits
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | R136, 30 Doradus |
| R.A. Position | 05h 38m 42.39s |
| Dec. Position | -69° 6' 2.81" |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
