| NASA Center: |
Hubble Space Telescope Center |
|---|
| Image # : |
PR00-14 |
|---|
| Date : |
05/11/2000
|
|---|
|
Title
Galactic Silhouettes
Full Description
This new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and its Wide Field
and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) shows the unique galaxy pair called NGC
3314. Through an extraordinary chance alignment, a face-on spiral
galaxy lies precisely in front of another larger spiral. This line-up
provides us with the rare chance to visualize dark material within the
front galaxy, seen only because it is silhouetted against the object
behind it.
Dust lying in the spiral arms of the foreground galaxy stands out
where it absorbs light from the more distant galaxy. This silhouetting
shows us where the interstellar dust clouds are located, and how much
light they absorb. The outer spiral arms of the front galaxy appear to
change from bright to dark, as they are projected first against deep
space, and then against the bright background of the other galaxy. NGC
3314 lies about 140 million light-years from Earth, in the direction of
the southern hemisphere constellation Hydra.
The bright blue stars forming a pinwheel shape near the center of the
front galaxy have formed recently from interstellar gas and dust. A
small, red patch near the center of the image is the bright nucleus of
the background galaxy, NGC 3314b. It is reddened for the same reason
the setting sun looks red. When light passes through a volume
containing small particles (molecules in the Earth's atmosphere or
interstellar dust particles in galaxies), its color becomes redder.
The Hubble Heritage color image of NGC 3314 was constructed from
archival images taken with WFPC2 in April 1999 by Drs. William Keel and
Ray White III (University of Alabama) in blue and infrared light,
combined with new images obtained by the Heritage team in March 2000
using blue, green and red filters.
Keywords
Hubble Space Telescope HST Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 WFPC NGC 3314 Spiral Galaxy
Subject Category
Deep Space Studies, Hubble,
Reference Numbers
- Center:
HSTI
- Center Number:
PR00-14
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2000-000893
Source Information
- Creator/Photographer: NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI, AURA ODGalactic Silhouettes
- Original Source: DIGITAL
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
.jpg |
88 |
81 |
11 |
Small |
.jpg |
623 |
573 |
328 |
Medium |
.jpg |
1460 |
1344 |
1,168 |
Large |
.jpg |
701 |
645 |
482 |
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Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
• Responsible NASA Official: Steve Garber
• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
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