1 min read

Hubble Frontier Field Abell 2744

Hundreds of galaxies in a diverse array of shapes and colors are scattered across the dark background of space.

This long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image of massive galaxy cluster Abell 2744 is the deepest ever made of any cluster of galaxies. It shows some of the faintest and youngest galaxies ever detected in space. Abell 2744, located in the constellation Sculptor, appears in the foreground of this image. It contains several hundred galaxies as they looked 3.5 billion years ago. The immense gravity in Abell 2744 acts as a gravitational lens to warp space and brighten and magnify images of nearly 3,000 distant background galaxies. The more distant galaxies appear as they did longer than 12 billion years ago, not long after the big bang. This image is part of an unprecedented long-distance view of the universe from an ambitious collaborative project among the NASA Great Observatories called The Frontier Fields. Over the next several years select patches of the sky will be photographed for the purpose of better understanding galaxy evolution. This visible-light and near-infrared composite image was taken with the Wide Field Camera 3.

About the Object

R.A. Position
R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
00h 14m 19.5s
Dec. Position
Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
-30° 23' 19.18"
Constellation
ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
Sculptor
Distance
DistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
Redshift: z=0.308

About the Data

Data Description
Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.
Data were obtained as part of the HST proposals 11689: R. Dupke (Eureka Scientific Inc.) et al., 13386: S. Rodney (JHU) et al., and 13495: J. Lotz (STScI) et al.
Instrument
InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
HST>ACS/WFC and HST>WFC3/IR
Exposure Dates
Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
October 2009; August - November 2013 Exposure Time: 67 hours
Filters
FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
ACS/WFC: F435W (B), F606W (V), F814W (I) WFC3/IR: F105W (Y), F125W (J), F140W (JH), F160W (H)

Object Name
Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
Abell 2744, Pandora's Cluster
Object Description
Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
Galaxy Cluster and Gravitational Lens
Release Date
January 7, 2014
Science Release
Hubble’s First Frontier Field Finds Thousands of Unseen, Faraway Galaxies
Read the release

Downloads

3909 × 4360
jpg (21.44 MB)
3909 × 4360
tif (39.52 MB)
1076 × 1200
jpg (916.31 KB)
PDF
(20.97 MB)
2400 × 3000
(3.79 MB)
200 × 200
(34.05 KB)
359 × 400
(104.73 KB)
929 × 1061
(363.78 KB)
1148 × 1280
(1.75 MB)

This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the ACS and WFC3 instruments 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: F435W (B) + F606W (V) Green: F814W (I) + F105W (Y) Red: F125W (J) + F140W (JH) + F160W (H)

Related Images & Videos