A beforehand unexplored globular cluster glitters with multicolored stars on this NASA Hubble Space Telescope picture. Globular clusters like this one, referred to as ESO 591-12 or Palomar 8, are spherical collections of tens of hundreds to tens of millions of stars tightly certain collectively by gravity. Globular clusters usually type early within the galaxies’ histories in areas wealthy in fuel and dirt. Because the stars type from the identical cloud of fuel because it collapses, they usually hover across the identical age. Strewn throughout this picture of ESO 591-12 are quite a few crimson and blue stars. The colours point out their temperatures; crimson stars are cooler, whereas the blue stars are hotter.
Hubble captured the info used to create this picture of ESO 591-12 as a part of a examine supposed to resolve particular person stars of your complete globular cluster system of the Milky Means. Hubble revolutionized the examine of globular clusters since earthbound telescopes are unable to tell apart particular person stars within the compact clusters. The examine is a part of the Hubble Lacking Globular Clusters Survey, which targets 34 confirmed Milky Means globular clusters that Hubble has but to look at.
This system goals to supply full observations of ages and distances for all the Milky Means’s globular clusters and examine elementary properties of still-unexplored clusters within the galactic bulge or halo. The observations will present key info on the early phases of our galaxy, when globular clusters shaped.
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Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov