Hubble Field Camera 3 Lab Report

The observations made by Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) have peered deeply into various Hubble Treasury fields to create panchromatic images of the most distant, ancient galaxies currently recorded. While working in tandem with the established HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), the WFC3 imaging system captures clear, color-rich pictures of these high redshift galaxies through its ultraviolet visible and near-infrared channels and respective filter elements. The WFC3 also exhibits an immense field of view and increased sensitivity that significantly contributes to the development of dense mosaics of Hubble Treasury fields that contain myriads of compact primeval galaxies. It is within these mosaics that astronomers

The HST WFC3 was specifically designed to study galaxies at redshifts from z∼3 to z∼1, as this is known as the critical epoch where galaxies began to largely accumulate stellar mass and acquire their currently established cosmic structures and properties (Stiavelli and O’Connell 2009). Because the study of galaxy formation and evolution continues to challenge astrophysical theories, it became necessary to shift the WFC3 focus to galaxies undergoing reionisation at redshifts z∼7-9 (McClure et. al. 2009). In order to do this, researchers from the Goddard Space Flight Center collaborated with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and the Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation in Boulder to create a two-channeled, multi-filter instrument that covers both the ultraviolet-visible (UVIS) and near-infrared (NIR) spectrums (Dunbar 2008). The UVIS channel is used in tandem with the visible light analysis from Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to achieve an incredibly clear view into the star-forming regions of ancient galaxies; meanwhile, the NIR channel is uses its crystalline photosensitive detector to examine the stretched infrared light of very distant galaxies about 12-13 billion light years away from Earth (Dunbar 2010). This WFC3/NIR

The galaxy formation studies mission of HST WFC3 was allotted 104 orbits (about 150 hours) of active observation time in which immense mosaics—or multiple images of the same object in different regions—with 8079 x 5540 pixels were created with the existing data collected by the ACS (Windhorst et. al. 2010). It became necessary to blend images captured by the color filters WFC3 and ACS with the finding that dust and stellar distribution was causing the WFC3/UVIS channel to take clumpy and scarce photos of galaxies. The iconic images taken by the HST and ACS, such as the most recent Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 as scene in Figure Three, reveal minuscule and compact young galaxies that fit the mass of our Milky Way (about 100,000 light years across) into 650 light years (NASA 2014). Inside these galaxies, the high-rate of star birth often burns up the gaseous fuel, thus exhausting the supplies of the galaxy. The galaxy then quickly evolves into a non-typical dead elliptical galaxy. Currently, astronomers can also use the WFC3/NIR observations to fill the missing gaps of information concerning the youngest-known stars that appear only in the infrared. Researchers at NASA, ESA, and STScI can now utilize this information to create conceptual