The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has produced a beautiful image of a globular cluster known as NGC 1783.
This Hubble image shows the intermediate-age globular cluster NGC 1783. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Judy Schmidt, geckzilla.com.
NGC 1783 is a magnitude 10.9 globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Also known as ESO 85-29 or HD 270921, the cluster was discovered on December 13, 1835 by John Herschel.
It is located in the southern hemisphere constellation of Dorado and is roughly 160,000 light-years away from Earth.
It has a mass of 170 000 solar masses, making it one of the more massive star clusters in the LMC.
Globular clusters like NGC 1783 are dense collections of stars held together by their own gravity, which orbit around galaxies like satellites.
The Hubble image clearly shows the symmetrical shape of the cluster and the concentration of stars towards the center, both typical features of globular clusters.
By measuring the color and brightness of individual stars, astronomers can deduce an overall age for a cluster and a picture of its star formation history.
NGC 1783 is thought to be under 1.5 billion years old – which is very young for globular clusters, which are typically several billion years old.
During that time, it is thought to have undergone at least two periods of star formation, separated by 50 to 100 million years.
The outer ring of the cluster (26 to 84.5 light-years) is thought to be slightly younger than the center.
This picture was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).
Amateur astronomer Judy Schmidt submitted a version of this image to the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition.
