Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos!
Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is
featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2014 April 25
Hubble's Messier 5
Image Credit:
HST,
ESA,
NASA
Explanation:
"Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the
Serpent [Serpens] ..." begins the description of
the 5th entry
in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous catalog of
nebulae and star clusters.
Though it
appeared
to Messier to be fuzzy and round and without stars,
Messier 5 (M5)
is now known to be a globular star cluster,
100,000 stars or more, bound by gravity and packed into
a region around 165 light-years in diameter.
It lies some 25,000 light-years away.
Roaming
the halo
of our galaxy, globular star clusters are ancient
members of the Milky Way.
M5 is one of the oldest globulars, its stars estimated to be nearly
13 billion years old.
The beautiful star cluster is a popular target for
Earthbound telescopes.
Of course, deployed in low Earth orbit on April 25, 1990, the Hubble Space
Telescope has also captured its own
stunning
close-up view that spans about
20 light-years near the central region of M5.
Even close to its
dense core at the
left, the cluster's aging
red and blue giant stars and
rejuvenated
blue
stragglers stand out in yellow and blue hues in
the sharp color image.
Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(
MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell (
UMCP)
NASA Official: Phillip Newman
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