Jump to content

File:IC 755 HST.jpg

Page contents not supported in other languages.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Original file (3,928 × 1,807 pixels, file size: 3.87 MB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Summary

Description
English: The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has imaged an elongated stream of stars, gas and dust called IC 755, which is actually a spiral galaxy that we are seeing edge-on.

In 1999 a star within IC 755 was seen to explode as a supernova and named SN 1999an. The supernova was discovered by the Beijing Astronomical Observatory Supernova Survey and three years later Hubble was used to study the environment in which the explosion took place. The inclination of the galaxy made the supernova a challenging target as many other intervening objects obscured the view. Valuable data were obtained and suggest that before detonation the star may have been around 20 times more massive than our Sun, and that it was likely to have been in the region of 14 million years old.

Supernovae like SN 1999an are classified as Type IIs and they are dramatic events that mark the end of the lives of massive stars. They have an important role to play in galaxy evolution as many elements are formed during the explosion and are ejected with such force that they are distributed far and wide. Shockwaves also help to mix material within the host galaxy and may spark new rounds of star formation. Billions of stars make up galaxies like IC 755 and many will become supernovae, using their final moments to breathe new life into the rest of the Universe.

This picture was created from multiple images taken with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Exposures through a blue filter (F435W) are coloured blue, exposures through a yellow-green filter (F555W) are coloured green and images through a near-infrared filter (F814W) are shown as red. The total exposure times per filter are 430 s and the field of view is 3.3 x 1.5 arcminutes.

Cross Identifications: NGC 4019, IC 755, UGC 7001, MCG 2-31-14, PGC 37912, FGC 1347, IRAS11585+1423, ZWG 69.24 (Revised NGC Data for NGC 4019)
Date
Source http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw1129a/
Author ESA/Hubble & NASA

Licensing

w:en:Creative Commons
attribution
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
You are free:
  • to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
  • to remix – to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
  • attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Captions

Add a one-line explanation of what this file represents

Items portrayed in this file

depicts

18 July 2011

File history

Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.

Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current10:28, 18 July 2011Thumbnail for version as of 10:28, 18 July 20113,928 × 1,807 (3.87 MB)Jmencisom

The following 2 pages use this file:

Global file usage

The following other wikis use this file:

Metadata