| NASA Center: |
Hubble Space Telescope Center |
|---|
| Image # : |
PR99-30B |
|---|
| Date : |
09/16/1999
|
|---|
|
Title
Quintuplet Cluster
Full Description
Penetrating 25,000 light-years of obscuring dust and myriad stars,
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has provided the clearest view yet of one
of the largest young clusters of stars inside our Milky Way galaxy,
located less than 100 light-years from the very center of the Galaxy.
Having the equivalent mass greater than 10,000 stars like our sun, the
monster cluster is ten times larger than typical young star clusters
scattered throughout our Milky Way. It is destined to be ripped apart in
just a few million years by gravitational tidal forces in the galaxy's
core. But in its brief lifetime it shines more brightly than any other star
cluster in the Galaxy.
Quintuplet Cluster is 4 million years old. It has stars on the verge
of blowing up as supernovae. It is the home of the brightest star seen
in the galaxy, called the Pistol star. This image was taken in infrared
light by Hubble's NICMOS camera in September 1997. The false colors
correspond to infrared wavelengths. The galactic center stars are
white, the red stars are enshrouded in dust or behind dust, and the
blue stars are foreground stars between us and the Milky Way's center.
The cluster is hidden from direct view behind black dust clouds in the
constellation Sagittarius. If the cluster could be seen from earth it
would appear to the naked eye as a 3rd magnitude star, 1/6th of a full
moon's diameter apart.
Keywords
Hubble Space Telescope HST Cluster Milky Way Galaxy Quintuplet Cluster Pistol Star Sagittarius Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer NICMOS
Subject Category
Deep Space Studies, Hubble,
Reference Numbers
- Center:
HSTI
- Center Number:
PR99-30B
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2000-000908
Source Information
- Creator/Photographer: NASA, Don Figer, STScI
- Original Source: DIGITAL
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
.jpg |
95 |
95 |
39 |
Small |
.jpg |
888 |
897 |
1,024 |
Medium |
.jpg |
2081 |
2102 |
2,893 |
Large |
.jpg |
999 |
1009 |
1,340 |
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Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
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• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
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