Stand out above the crowd :

⁣This is NGC 2005. It’s a glittery star cluster – a globular cluster – and it’s kinda weird. NGC 2005’s stars have a chemical composition that is distinct from the stars around it in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the Milky Way’s largest satellite galaxy.⁣

⁣

This suggests that the LMC underwent a merger with another galaxy somewhere in its history. That other galaxy has long-since merged and otherwise scattered, but NGC 2005 remains as an ancient witness to the merger.⁣

⁣

Globular clusters are large and dense, containing several thousand to millions of stars all formed from a shared nebula. These clusters are stable and contain some of the oldest known stars in a galaxy, so they’re an excellent laboratory to study galaxy evolution.⁣

⁣

Image description: A globular cluster that looks like a very dense, ball-shaped collection of many shining stars in colors of white, yellow-orange, and blue. Some stars appear a bit larger and brighter than others, with the brightest having faint cross-shaped diffraction spikes. The cluster’s stars are scattered mostly uniformly, with their density increasing toward the cluster’s core where they merge into a strong, bright-white glow.⁣

⁣

Credit: NASA⁣

#NASA #Hubble #Stars #MilkyWay #Galaxy

 [ INFORMATION DATA: 15 June 2024 ]