| NASA Center: |
Hubble Space Telescope Center |
|---|
| Image # : |
PR99-26 |
|---|
| Date : |
07/01/1999
|
|---|
|
Title
A Swarm of Ancient Stars
Full Description
This stellar swarm is M80 (NGC 6093), one of the densest of the 147
known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Located about
28,000 light-years from Earth, M80 contains hundreds of thousands of
stars, all held together by their mutual gravitational attraction.
Globular clusters are particularly useful for studying stellar
evolution, since all of the stars in the cluster have the same age
(about 15 billion years), but cover a range of stellar masses. Every
star visible in this image is either more highly evolved than, or in a
few rare cases more massive than, our own Sun. Especially obvious are
the bright red giants, which are stars similar to the Sun in mass that
are nearing the ends of their lives.
Keywords
Hubble Space Telescope HST M80 NGC 6093 Milky Way Globular Cluster
Subject Category
Deep Space Studies, Hubble,
Reference Numbers
- Center:
HSTI
- Center Number:
PR99-26
- GRIN DataBase Number:
GPN-2000-000930
Source Information
- Creator/Photographer: NASA, The Hubble Heritage Team, STScI, AURA
- Original Source: DIGITAL
| Resolution | Format | Width
(Pixels) | Height
(Pixels) | Size
(KBytes) |
Thumbnail |
.jpg |
95 |
95 |
20 |
Small |
.jpg |
758 |
795 |
878 |
Medium |
.jpg |
1777 |
1864 |
4,074 |
Large |
.jpg |
1777 |
1864 |
4,077 |
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Updated October 31, 2002
• History Questions: NASA History Office
• Responsible NASA Official: Steve Garber
• Author: Michael Hahn. Editor: Dwayne A. Day
• Curator & Technical Questions: Erin Needham
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