Hubble Space Telescope discovers celestial fossil

He Hubble Space Telescope This crowded cluster of stars has been captured, which matches the globular cluster – or ‘celestial fossil’ – NGC 1841. large magellanic cloudS (LMC) at 162,000 light years.

satellite galaxies As such the LMCs are gravitationally bound to orbits around the more massive host galaxy. we generally think andromeda galaxy As the nearest galactic companion to our Galaxy, but it is more accurate to say that Andromeda is the nearest galaxy that is not in orbit around the Milky Way.

In fact, dozens galaxies Satellites orbit our galaxy and are much closer to it Andromeda, The largest and brightest of them is the LMC, which is easily visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere in dark sky conditions and away from light pollution, explains pot,

The LMC hosts several 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 show that the stellar populations and characteristics of globular clusters are diverse and complex, and we do not yet fully understand how such tightly packed clusters of stars form.

However, all globular clusters have certain stabilities: they are very stable and retain their shape for long periods of time, which means they are usually very old and contain a large number of very old stars. round flakes They are similar to celestial “fossils”. Just as fossils provide information about the early development of life on Earth, globular clusters like NGC 1841 can provide information about very early star formation in galaxies.