10/06/2001
The Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the many faces of the spiral galaxy NGC1512
An Israeli team that participated in an American-European research, using the "Hubble" space telescope, revealed the many faces of the spiral galaxy labeled NGC1512, which is 30 million light years away from us. Mapping is done in spectacular colors, in seven wavelengths - from the ultraviolet to the infrared. The colors illustrate differences in the intensity of starlight in the galaxy. This is how unique regions in its core were discovered - in which star clusters were born only recently. They are found in the "dusty" regions as well as the "clean" regions of the same galaxy.
The head of the Israeli team, Dr. Dan Maoz from Tel Aviv University (now at "Columbia", USA) said that the galaxy that was studied is in the southern constellation Urologium. Relatively, it is one of the closest among the most distant, from us. Sometimes its stars can also be seen in an amateur telescope. It is about 70 thousand light years long, almost as long as the "Milky Way" and at its core is a cluster of "baby" stars that spans 2400 light years.
The research will make it possible to learn about the first generations of the stars and their birth - as it happened at the beginning of the universe.
Maoz pointed out that the new stars in the dust regions are only detected with caution (a phenomenon reminiscent of
turning on/off with an electric light bulb) an egg in the gaseous cloud, within which they are hidden. The "Hubble" infrared cameras located them. It is possible that stellar winds (like the solar wind) and powerful radiation originating from the bright stars that were born, remove the dust cloud and "clean" areas of the galaxy.
(A.D.M.)
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