Image via ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured an image of a “globular” cluster, featuring what the agency describes as “a pocketful of stars.”
The cluster, featuring thousands of stars, is known as NGC 1805, and it resides at the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way.
Normally, globular clusters would consist of stars that are born at the same time. However, the space agency found that the NGC 1805 included stars from two different populations that are aged millions of years apart.
Scientists also noted that the center of the stars would not be likely orbited by planets, as they are 100 to 1,000 times closer than the stars are to Earth’s sun.
The image showed the stars in different colors. The stars in blue shun the brightest near-ultraviolet light, while the red stars were shown near-infrared.
[via
NASA, cover image via
ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Kalirai]