When the tens of millions of stars in the universe gather together to glow, they look like beautiful fireworks exploded in the eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope, such as the image of the NGC 6717 globular star cluster recently shared by the telescope. Sagittarius (Latin: Sagittarius) 20,000 light years away.
Globular clusters refer to large groups of stars that are spherical in appearance and orbit around the core of the galaxy. Tens of millions of stars are attracted by gravity and squeezed within a range of 30 to 100 light-years in diameter. They usually contain the oldest ones in the universe. The second constellation stars, studying them can understand how early stars and galaxies formed, which is very important for astronomers.
However, the location of the globular cluster NGC 6717 makes imaging a challenge. Sagittarius and the center of the Milky Way are located in the same area of the sky. The latter gathers a large amount of light-absorbing dust and gas, making it difficult to study the galactic globular cluster.
In order to capture NGC 6717 images through these dust and gas, the Hubble Space Telescope integrated the third-generation Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to image NGC 6717 to determine Its properties.
In the newly released photos of the Hubble Telescope, it can be seen that the edges of the NGC 6717 globular star cluster are sparsely populated, in sharp contrast with the shiny center, and the overall look is more like a firework show in an explosion.
(First image source: NASA)
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