Abstract
We have imaged the ∼2.2 billion-year-old Large Magellanic Cloud populous cluster NGC 1978 in the far-ultraviolet and visible with the second Wide Field/Planetary Camera (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope. The far-ultraviolet images show a sparse stellar field with little apparent density enhancement in the cluster core. The visible images are dominated by the cluster's first-ascent and second-ascent red giants, which are completely invisible to the far-ultraviolet filter. No evidence for a hot horizontal branch population of core-helium-burning stars is seen; nor is there any apparent indication of a significant blue straggler population. These results suggest that the presence of a rich, young population of field stars in the NGC 1978 region is responsible for the unusual location of the cluster in the integrated light color-color plots produced by IUE.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 1945-1950 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Astronomical Journal |
Volume | 114 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Nov 1997 |
Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science