Lars Christensen
Star on a Hubble diet

Astrophotograph; Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for surveys on board the Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility,

European Space Agency/Hubble & NASA, Munich, Germany

The star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 that extends one degree on the sky in the direction of the Scorpius constellation. A region in the nebula has been ionized over time by the youngest (bluest) heavy stars in Pismis 24. The intense ultraviolet radiation from the blazing stars heats the gas surrounding the cluster and creates a bubble in NGC 6357. The presence of the surrounding gas clouds makes probing into the region difficult. This image is a composite of many separate exposures made by the ACS and WFPC2 instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope using several different filters. Five filters were used to sample both broad and narrow wavelength ranges. The color picture results from assigning different colors to each of the monochromatic images. Image credits: NASA, ESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz—Instituto de astrofísica de Andalucía, Spain and acknowledgements to Davide De Martin—ESA/Hubble.

To email this contributor, click on the following email address:
rshida@eso.org