Hubble image archive
Asteroid Passes in Front of UGC 12158 (Compass Image)
This Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble's field-of-view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy....
- Date
- Apr 18, 2024
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2024-014-01hsv9fhgt7xsb36fqcdkqw1cy
This Hubble Space Telescope image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble's field-of-view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, what is evidence in the dashed pattern.
The asteroid appears as a curved trail due to parallax: Hubble is not stationary, but orbiting Earth, and this gives the illusion that the faint asteroid is swimming along a curved trajectory. The uncharted asteroid is inside the asteroid belt in our solar system, and hence is 10 trillion times closer to Hubble than the background galaxy.
Rather than a nuisance, this type of data are useful to astronomers for doing a census of the asteroid population in our solar system.
Credits
Image
NASA, ESA, Pablo García Martín (UAM)
Image Processing
Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Acknowledgment
Alex Filippenko (UC Berkeley)
Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | UGC 12158 |
| Object Description | Sprial galaxy with asteroid passing through field of view |
| R.A. Position | 22:42:10.496 |
| Dec. Position | 19:59:49.21 |
| Constellation | Pegasus |
| Distance | 400 million light-years |
| Dimensions | Image is about 2.2 arcmin across (about 256,000 light-years) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The HST observations include those from program (A. Filippenko). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) |
| Instrument | ACS/WFC |
| Exposure Dates | September 15, 2004 |
| Filters | F475W, F606W, F814W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope. Several filters were used to sample broad wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F475W, Green: F606W, Red: F814W |
Downloads
Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov