2023-09-12 05:01:06
[The Epoch Times, September 11, 2023](Epoch Times reporter Chen Juncun reported) The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a picture of a globular star cluster captured by the Hubble Space Telescope on September 7. This globular star cluster, known as Terzan 12, is located in the inner part of the Milky Way and is surrounded by gas and dust, but it still shines brightly. It’s a good example of how dust in space affects starlight from background objects. According to the NASA website, globular clusters are agglomerations of stars that are spherical in shape. The stars in a globular cluster are bound together by gravity, and there will be a denser distribution of stars in the center of the cluster. There are about 150 ancient globular star clusters in the outer reaches of the Milky Way. These star clusters orbit the center of the Milky Way but far above and below the plane of the Milky Way, like bees buzzing around a hive. Terzan 12 is one of 11 globular star clusters discovered by Turkish-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan about half a century ago and named after him. Its location deep in the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius means that it is shrouded in gas and dust that absorbs and alters the starlight emitted by the cluster. The cluster is about 15,000 light-years away from Earth. This position leaves a lot of space for interstellar dust particles between us and the cluster. This dust can scatter blue light, causing only redder wavelengths to reach Earth. The interstellar dust clouds are mottled, so different parts of the cluster appear redder than other parts of the cluster to our view. This image was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, which is jointly managed by the agency and the European Space Agency (ESA). The brightest red stars in the image are massive, old stars many times larger than our Sun. These red stars are located between Earth and the cluster, and only a few may actually be members of the cluster. The brightest hot blue stars are also outside the cluster, and there are only old stars in the cluster. It is worth mentioning that Terzan only discovered 11 star clusters, so why is the number 12? The ESA noted that this was due to an error on Terzan’s part. Terzan discovered a star cluster in 1971 and named it Terzan 11, but this was actually Terzan 5, which he discovered in 1968. He accidentally confused it . To solve this problem, astronomers finally met and decided that Terzan 11 did not exist. Editor in charge: Li Ming#
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