The iconic Hubble Space Telescope has captured a scintillating new photo of a densely populated region of stars located in the constellation Sagittarius.
The star grouping is a globular cluster known as NGC 6558, located 23,000 light years from Earth. At this distance, the cluster resides closer to the center of the Milky Way that the Earth, according to A declaration from the European Space Agency (ESA), which released the image on May 16.
The new photo was taken by the The Hubble Space TelescopeAdvanced Camera for Surveys, designed to survey large areas of the sky at visible and red wavelengths. The telescope is an international collaboration between NASA and ESA.
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“Globular clusters like NGC 6558 are tightly-knit collections of tens of thousands to millions of stars, and they can be found in a wide range of galaxiessaid ESA officials in the statement. “As this observation shows, stars in globular clusters can be densely packed; this image is filled with stars in a rich variety of hues.”
The globular cluster includes bright stars, some of which are surrounded by prominent diffraction spikes or lines radiating from bright light sources. This visual starburst effect is created when starlight interacts with the telescope’s mirrors, causing the light to bend.
“Globular clusters provide astronomers with interesting natural laboratories in which to test their theories, because all the stars in a globular cluster formed around the same time with a similar initial composition,” ESA officials said. in the press release. “These star clusters therefore provide unique insights into how different stars evolve under similar conditions.”
The recent Hubble image was taken as part of a project to study globular clusters in the inner Milky Way, which could offer new clues about how these stellar groupings form and evolve.
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