2024-03-04 13:16:10
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured this crowded group of stars, which corresponds to the globular cluster – or ‘celestial fossil’ – NGC 1841 in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) 162,000 light years away.
Satellite galaxies like the LMC are bound by gravity in orbits around a more massive host galaxy. We normally think of the Andromeda Galaxy as the closest galactic companion to our galaxy, but it is more accurate to say that Andromeda is the closest galaxy that is not in orbit around the Milky Way.
In fact, dozens of satellite galaxies orbit our galaxy and are much closer than Andromeda. The largest and brightest of them is LMC, which is easily visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere under dark sky conditions and away from light pollution, NASA explains.
LMC hosts many globular clusters. These celestial bodies lie somewhere between open clusters, which are much less dense and tightly packed, and small, compact galaxies. Increasingly sophisticated observations reveal that the stellar populations and characteristics of globular clusters are varied and complex, and we have yet to fully understand how such tightly packed groups of stars form.
However, there are certain consistencies in all globular clusters: they are very stable and maintain their shape for a long time, which means that they are usually very old and contain a large number of very old stars. Globular clusters are similar to celestial “fossils.” Just as fossils provide information regarding the early development of life on Earth, globular clusters like NGC 1841 can provide information regarding very early star formation in galaxies.
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#Hubble #Space #Telescope #Discovers #Celestial #Fossil
