Galaxy Crown of Thorns NGC 7049

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HEIC0905: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 10:00(CEST)/04:00 am EDT 07 April, 2009
http://www.spacetelescope.org/news/html/heic090X.html

Photo release: Dramatically backlit dust in giant galaxy

07-Apr 2009 A new Hubble image highlights striking swirling dust lanes
and glittering globular clusters in oddball galaxy NGC 7049.

The NASA/ESAs Hubble Space Telescope has captured this image of NGC
7049, a mysterious looking galaxy on the border between spiral and
elliptical galaxies. NGC 7049 is found in the constellation of Indus,
and is the brightest of a cluster of galaxies, a so-called Brightest
Cluster Galaxy (BCG). Typical BCGs are some of the oldest and most
massive galaxies. They provide excellent opportunities for astronomers
to study the elusive globular clusters lurking within.

The globular clusters in NGC 7049 are seen as the sprinkling of small
faint points of light in the galaxys halo. The halo — the ghostly
region of diffuse light surrounding the galaxy — is composed of myriads
of individual stars and provides a luminous background to the
remarkable swirling ring of dust lanes surrounding NGC 7049s core.
Globular clusters are very dense and compact groupings of a few
hundreds of thousands of stars bound together by gravity. They contain
some of the first stars to be produced in a galaxy. NGC 7049 has far
fewer such clusters than other similar giant galaxies in very big, rich
groups. This indicates to astronomers how the surrounding environment
influenced the formation of galaxy halos in the early Universe.

The image was taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys on Hubble, which
is optimised to hunt for galaxies and galaxy clusters in the remote and
ancient Universe, at a time when our cosmos was very young.

The constellation of Indus, or the Indian, is one of the least
conspicuous in the southern sky. It was named in the 16th century by
Dutch astronomer Petrus Plancius from observations made by Dutch
navigator Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Dutch explorer Frederick de
Houtman.

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Notes for editors
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation
between ESA and NASA.

Image credit: NASA, ESA and W. Harris (McMaster University, Ontario,
Canada)

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Galaxy
• Crown
• of
• Thorns
• NGC
• 7049