File:Hubble finds evidence of multiple stellar populations in globular cluster 47 Tucanae.jpg

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English: These images showcase the ancient globular cluster 47 Tucanae, a dense swarm of up to a million stars.

The image on the left shows the entire cluster, which measures about 120 light-years across. Located in the southern constellation Tucana (The Toucan), the cluster is about 16700 light-years away. The image is part of the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) and was taken by the UK Schmidt Telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales, Australia. The white rectangular box outlines the view taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

That image, shown at right, captures close-up views of thousands of cluster stars. The large bright stars in the image are red giants. These stars have puffed up to several times their normal size because they have exhausted their nuclear fuel and are near the end of their lives. The image was taken by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys.

Astronomers used these Hubble observations along with archival Hubble data of 47 Tucanae to accurately measure the changes in positions of more than 30 000 cluster stars. Based on those measurements, the astronomers pieced together the stars' histories, finding two populations of stars that have different chemical compositions and different motions. Understanding the dynamics of the 47 Tucanae stars can yield insights into how this cluster formed its stars.

The Hubble image was taken between January and October 2010. The Schmidt telescope image was taken Oct. 12, 1977, and Sept. 9, 1989.
Date
Source http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo1325a/
Author NASA, ESA, Digitized Sky Survey (DSS; STcI/AURA/UKSTU/AAO), H. Richer and J. Heyl (University of British Columbia), and J. Anderson and J. Kalirai (STScI)

Licensing

Public domain
This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA and ESA. NASA Hubble material (and ESA Hubble material prior to 2009) is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if ESA material created after 2008 or source material from other organizations is in use.

The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-26555, or for ESA by the Hubble European Space Agency Information Centre. Copyright statement at hubblesite.org or 2008 copyright statement at spacetelescope.org.

For material created by the European Space Agency on the spacetelescope.org site since 2009, use the {{ESA-Hubble}} tag.

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19 July 2013

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