Hubble image archive
Stars' Clockwork Motion Captured in Nearby Galaxy
This photo illustration shows Hubble measurements of the rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the nearest visible galaxy to our Milky Way. The LMC appears in the Southern Hemisphere's night sky. In this photo illustration, the image contrast in a ground-based photo was e...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2014
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2014-11-3312-image
This photo illustration shows Hubble measurements of the rotation of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the nearest visible galaxy to our Milky Way. The LMC appears in the Southern Hemisphere's night sky. In this photo illustration, the image contrast in a ground-based photo was enhanced to highlight the LMC's faint outer regions, which are not visible to the naked eye. To illustrate the LMC's large apparent size on the sky, an image of the full moon is shown at bottom right. A horizon has been added for perspective.
The arrows represent the highest-quality Hubble measurements of the motion of the LMC's stars to show how this galaxy rotates. Each arrow reveals the predicted motion over the next 7 million years. The motion of each star measured by Hubble over a few years' time is a million times smaller than the length of each arrow. The LMC completes a rotation every 250 million years.
Credits
Image: NASA, ESA, A. Feild and Z. Levay (STScI), Y. Beletsky (Las Campanas Observatory), and R. van der Marel (STScI);Science: NASA, ESA, R. van der Marel (STScI), and N. Kallivayalil (University of Virginia)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Object Description | Irregular Galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 05h 23m 34s.53 |
| Dec. Position | -69° 45' 22".07 |
| Constellation | Dorado |
| Distance | 170,000 light-years (52,000 parsecs) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The Hubble data are from proposals : C. Alcock (Harvard University), R. van der Marel (STScI), C. Nelson (University of California, Berkeley), T. Axelrod (University of Arizona), K. Cook (Eureka Scientific Inc.), A. Drake (Caltech), and M. Geha (Yale University); : C. Alcock (Harvard University), N. Kallivayalil (University of Virginia), R. van der Marel (STScI), M. Geha (Yale University), K. Cook (Eureka Scientific Inc.), A. Drake (Caltech), and T. Axelrod (University of Arizona); and : N. Kallivayalil (University of Virginia), R. van der Marel and J. Anderson (STScI), G. Besla (Columbia University), and C. Alcock (Harvard University). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS and HST>ACS/HRC |
| Exposure Dates | 2002 - 2010 |
| Filters | F606W (V) and F814W (I) |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
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