Hubble Space Telescope | Globular Star Cluster Exploration [Dome Version] @hubblespacetelescope | Uploaded November 2016 | Updated October 2024, 17 hours ago.
This movie is a low resolution preview of the hemispheric projection sequence for planetarium domes.
This scientific visualization presents a flight to a small globular star cluster and a few hundred thousand years of its development. Globular star clusters contain many thousands to millions of stars all orbiting around their common center of gravity. During the flight to and around the globular star cluster, time has been stopped to allow one to examine the structure of the cluster. After arrival, the stars begin their swarming orbits.
The visualization uses data from a simulation that followed the orbits of 6144 stars using the special purpose supercomputer GRAPE-4. This small globular star cluster is simulated in its early stages, with the sample of stars drawn from a zero-age main sequence. Hence, there are many more blue stars than would be found in a typical old globular cluster. The star brightnesses are calculated and calibrated to approximate what the human eye would see. The colors are a bit exaggerated in an attempt to compensate for desaturation during dome projection. For context, the globular cluster is placed within a random star field taken from the Yale Bright Star Catalog. The piece of the simulation shown here covers about 122 thousand years of the star cluster’s development. Time passes at a rate of about 2350 years per second, which corresponds to 78 years per frame at 30 frames per second.
The full resolution planetarium dome sequence is available at: hubblesite.org/video/906
Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI)
Simulation: Simon Portegies Zwart (Boston University)
This movie is a low resolution preview of the hemispheric projection sequence for planetarium domes.
This scientific visualization presents a flight to a small globular star cluster and a few hundred thousand years of its development. Globular star clusters contain many thousands to millions of stars all orbiting around their common center of gravity. During the flight to and around the globular star cluster, time has been stopped to allow one to examine the structure of the cluster. After arrival, the stars begin their swarming orbits.
The visualization uses data from a simulation that followed the orbits of 6144 stars using the special purpose supercomputer GRAPE-4. This small globular star cluster is simulated in its early stages, with the sample of stars drawn from a zero-age main sequence. Hence, there are many more blue stars than would be found in a typical old globular cluster. The star brightnesses are calculated and calibrated to approximate what the human eye would see. The colors are a bit exaggerated in an attempt to compensate for desaturation during dome projection. For context, the globular cluster is placed within a random star field taken from the Yale Bright Star Catalog. The piece of the simulation shown here covers about 122 thousand years of the star cluster’s development. Time passes at a rate of about 2350 years per second, which corresponds to 78 years per frame at 30 frames per second.
The full resolution planetarium dome sequence is available at: hubblesite.org/video/906
Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI)
Simulation: Simon Portegies Zwart (Boston University)
![Globular Star Cluster Exploration [Dome Version]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iNJXgMNSxNo/hqdefault.jpg "Globular Star Cluster Exploration [Dome Version]
This movie is a low resolution preview of the hemispheric projection sequence for planetarium domes.
This scientific visualization presents a flight to a small globular star cluster and a few hundred thousand years of its development. Globular star clusters contain many thousands to millions of stars all orbiting around their common center of gravity. During the flight to and around the globular star cluster, time has been stopped to allow one to examine the structure of the cluster. After arrival, the stars begin their swarming orbits.
The visualization uses data from a simulation that followed the orbits of 6144 stars using the special purpose supercomputer GRAPE-4. This small globular star cluster is simulated in its early stages, with the sample of stars drawn from a zero-age main sequence. Hence, there are many more blue stars than would be found in a typical old globular cluster. The star brightnesses are calculated and calibrated to approximate what the human eye would see. The colors are a bit exaggerated in an attempt to compensate for desaturation during dome projection. For context, the globular cluster is placed within a random star field taken from the Yale Bright Star Catalog. The piece of the simulation shown here covers about 122 thousand years of the star cluster’s development. Time passes at a rate of about 2350 years per second, which corresponds to 78 years per frame at 30 frames per second.
The full resolution planetarium dome sequence is available at: http://hubblesite.org/video/906/
Visualization: Frank Summers (STScI)
Simulation: Simon Portegies Zwart (Boston University)")
![30 Doradus: A Massive Star-Forming Region [Ultra HD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ipkFIgXYDZQ/hqdefault.jpg "30 Doradus: A Massive Star-Forming Region [Ultra HD]
30 Doradus (the Tarantula Nebula) is a very bright and active star-forming region outside of the Milky Way galaxy, at 160,000 light-years away. “30 Dor” is home to the central star cluster NGC 2070, including the most active region, R136, which appears in the central-right area of the image. R136 is a few million years old and contains many thousands of young stars, including several of the largest known. The bright blue stars shine out of the cleared cavity that is excavated by stellar winds. The redder stars are still partially embedded in the cloud material, seen in shadow except where illuminated by the cavity stars. In the infrared view the embedded stars shine more clearly through the intervening cloud material.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, G.Bacon (STScI)
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, F. Paresce (INAF-IASF, Bologna, Italy), R. OConnell (University of Virginia, Charlottesville), and the Wide Field Camera 3 Science Oversight Committee")
![M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy [UltraHD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k0m1isyRX-U/hqdefault.jpg "M101 - Pinwheel Galaxy [UltraHD]
This animation shows the Messier 101 (Pinwheel) Galaxy, with simulated rotation, in visible, then infrared, then X-ray, and finally all three combined.
M101 is a comparable in size to the Milky Way. The disk is 100 billion solar masses, and the central bulge of about 3 billion solar masses. M101 is rich is pinkish star forming regions, many of which are very large and bright. Unlike most spiral galaxies, M101spiral shape is notably asymmetrical. This is due to the tidal forces from interactions with its companion galaxies. These gravitational interactions compress interstellar hydrogen gas, which then triggers strong star formation activity in M101s spiral arms.
Video Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mould (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana), and STScI")
![Milky Way Center in Multiple Wavelengths [UltraHD]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mUQ0yl0w0iQ/hqdefault.jpg "Milky Way Center in Multiple Wavelengths [UltraHD]
Our solar system and sun is located inside a pancake shaped galaxy. Imagine a scale model where the plane of the Milky Way is a DVD, and the central bulge is a ping pong ball glued in the center. It is this narrow plane that we see across the sky on a sufficiently dark night from Earth, from our vantage point inside it. Dust blocks much of our view. But at other wavelengths astronomers can probe the heart of our galaxy.
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy, located 26,000 light-years away, houses a black hole as massive as a million suns, surrounded by very dense nest of stars and bright clouds. The density of stars in the innermost regions of the Milky Way is up to one million times greater than in our portion of the galaxy. This region contains extreme and unusual conditions that can influence the types of stars that reside there. The density of stars and clouds creates streaming patterns. There are large massive star clusters that cannot not be found outside that region. The radiation environment is intense in the galactic center.
The near-infrared image (Hubble) shows the knots of cloud edges and emission that mark the plane of our galaxy. The mid-infrared image (Spitzer) highlights the clouds of gas and dust and star forming regions. The X-ray image (Chandra) tracks the most luminous and powerful stars in the area conspicuously revealing the galactic center region itself - including the million-solar mass black hole at the very hub of our galaxy. In addition, several other X-ray emitting locations can be seen, linked to massive star clusters.
Video: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Image Credits: NASA, ESA, CXC, SSC and STScI")
