The Hubble Mission Support Team has released a new image. It captures the globular cluster Terzan 9, located in the constellation Sagittarius at a distance of only 2,300 light-years from the center of the Milky Way.
Globular clusters are groups of stars closely bound by gravity and orbiting the galactic center as a moon. They are considered one of the oldest objects in the Universe and mostly consist of old luminaries.
Such objects are characterized by a very dense “packing”: with an average diameter of 100-200 light–years, globular clusters can number tens, hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions of luminaries. Terzan 9 is no exception to this rule. Hubble’s photo shows the many stars that make up its composition. There are so many of them that they resemble a sea of sequins or a huge treasure chest filled with gold.
The image of the Terzan 9 cluster was taken as part of a study aimed at determining the age of globular clusters. This task is seriously complicated by the dust clouds flooding the center of the Milky Way. Fortunately, the Hubble Observatory has the ability to detect infrared radiation that is not absorbed by dust. Thanks to this, scientists assigned a similar task to the telescope.
You can also read about how Hubble took the most detailed infrared image of the Universe.
According to https://esahubble.org
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