Although the incredible images from James Webb are getting all the attention, Hubble is still going strong even thirty years after it was launched into orbit. In fact, to demonstrate its power, NASA, together with ESA, have published new images of a group of starsAnd it’s an impressive sight.
Located in the constellation of Sagittarius, the globular cluster of stars, named as NGC 6638, is presented in all its glory in a new image that is almost magical. To capture it, Hubble has used its Wide Angle Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Hubble’s launch revolutionized scientific understanding of globular clusters. Before its existence, the Earth’s dense atmosphere made it extremely difficult to study these star formations. Until then, it was impossible to clearly distinguish the individual stars in these celestial bodies using conventional telescopes on land. However, taking this powerful artifact into space forever changed the way we could study the same.
Thanks to Hubble, agencies such as NASA, ESA and the CSA have been able to improve our understanding of globular star clusters. The telescope has done an excellent job during its more than thirty years of operation. Now, the James Webb comes to relieve him and take the space study to another level that until now we did not know what we could achieve.
What can we see in the image taken by Hubble?
What does “globular cluster” mean? Well, it is a set of stars arranged in the form of a sphere, and which also orbit a galactic nucleus. Almost as if it were a satellite.
All stars are strongly bound together by gravity, a force that also organizes them in this striking way. This, in turn, makes us find a higher density near its center, and a more dispersed order as they move away from it.
By studying these clusters, astronomers have the ability to study the development of stars in the universe, how they evolve, and how important gravity is in their formation. Now the James Webb It has made a significant technical leap. With your cameras, you will be able to observe the infrared wavelengths. This allows you to see the celestial bodies much more clearly, given its less sensitivity to the interference of dust and gas that hides the formations.
In the case of NGC 6638 located in Sagittarius, has tens of billions of stars. An impressive amount that reminds us how small we are in the face of the vast cosmos.