Daily Telescope: Hubble images a dazzling array of stars 158,000 light-years away

Good morning. It’s December 11, and today’s image takes us to the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the closest galaxies to our own located about 158,000 light-years away.

This image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a magnificent globular cluster within the Large Magellanic Cloud. Such clusters are tightly bound and gravitationally stable, meaning that millions of stars remain contained in a (relatively) tightly confined space for billions of years. This makes it an attractive target for astronomers seeking to study older stars.

This cluster, known as NGC 2210, was discovered by astronomer John Herschel nearly two centuries ago. that it Believed to be It is about 11.6 billion years old.

Frankly, this amazing image blows my mind because you have so many stars, big and small, packed so tightly together — they’re thousands of times denser than our corner of the Milky Way. The night sky would be fairly bright if Earth were there. This image is also a testament to the observing power of the Hubble Space Telescope, which captures the stunning scale and grandeur of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Source: ESA/Hubble and NASA, A. Sarajdini, F. Niederhofer

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