Hubble Visits Glittering Cluster, Capturing Its Ultraviolet Light
- Hubble Space Telescope has revisited stunning globular cluster Messier 72 (M72) as part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, capturing its ultraviolet light for the first time.
- M72 is a collection of stars located in the constellation Aquarius, approximately 50,000 light-years from Earth, and is one of the most remote clusters in Messier’s famous catalog.
- The new image reveals striking variations in star colors due to the addition of ultraviolet observations, which help astronomers understand how globular clusters formed and evolved.
- Studying M72 and other globular clusters provides insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way, and has significantly advanced our understanding of astrophysics.
- The Hubble Space Telescope’s 35th anniversary marks a major milestone in its mission to explore the universe, with over three decades of groundbreaking discoveries and observations that have transformed our understanding of the cosmos.
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Hubble Visits Glittering Cluster, Capturing Its Ultraviolet Light
As part of ESA/Hubble’s 35th anniversary celebrations, the European Space Agency (ESA) shared new images that revisited stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.
ESA/Hubble released new images of NGC 346, the Sombrero Galaxy, and the Eagle Nebula earlier in the month. Now they are revisiting the star cluster Messier 72 (M72).
M72 is a collection of stars, formally known as a globular cluster, located in the constellation Aquarius roughly 50,000 light-years from Earth. The intense gravitational attraction between the closely packed stars gives globular clusters their regular, spherical shape. There are roughly 150 known globular clusters associated with the Milky Way galaxy.
The striking variety in the color of the stars in this image of M72, particularly compared to the original image, results from the addition of ultraviolet observations to the previous visible-light data. The colors indicate groups of different types of stars. Here, blue stars are those that were originally more massive and have reached hotter temperatures after burning through much of their hydrogen fuel; the bright red objects are lower-mass stars that have become red giants. Studying these different groups help astronomers understand how globular clusters, and the galaxies they were born in, initially formed.
Pierre Méchain, a French astronomer and colleague of Charles Messier, discovered M72 in 1780. It was the first of five star clusters that Méchain would discover while assisting Messier. They recorded the cluster as the 72nd entry in Messier’s famous collection of astronomical objects. It is also one of the most remote clusters in the catalog.
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
