Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to peer
into the center of a dense swarm of stars called Omega Centauri.
Located some 17,000 light-years from Earth, Omega Centauri is a
massive globular star cluster, containing several million stars
swirling in locked orbits around a common center of gravity.
The stars are packed so densely in the cluster’s core that it
is difficult for ground-based telescopes to make out individual
stars. Hubble’s high resolution is able to pick up where
ground-based telescopes leave off, capturing distinct points of
light from stars at the very center of the cluster.
Credits: NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
Acknowledgment: A. Cool (SFSU)
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