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Stephan's Quintet Hubble 2009.full
NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team
2009-07
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2009/news-2009-25.html (direct link to image page)
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Kids profiles and older: it shows nature, places, still life or a children's book. How works are placed
About this work
Galactic Wreckage in Stephan's Quintet
A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars.
This portrait of Stephan's Quintet, also known as Hickson Compact Group 92, was taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Stephan's Quintet, as the name implies, is a group of five galaxies. The name, however, is a bit of a misnomer. Studies have shown that group member NGC 7320, at upper left, is actually a foreground galaxy about seven times closer to Earth than the rest of the group.
Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters, proof of their close encounters. These interactions have sparked a frenzy of star birth in the central pair of galaxies. This drama is being played out against a rich backdrop of faraway galaxies.
The image, taken in visible and near-infrared light, showcases WFC3's broad wavelength range.
The colors trace the ages of the stellar populations, showing that star birth occurred at different epochs, stretching over hundreds of millions of…
