Hubble snaps globular cluster near the heart of our galaxy

Mike Letterman

Jun 19, 2022, 6:36 PM
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This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a group of stars.

Terzan 9 is located in the constellation of Sagittarius. The groups of tens of thousands to millions of stars are tightly bound. The hearts of the clusters are filled with stars. Terzan 9 is filled with so many stars that it looks like a sea of sequined gold.

This star-studded image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9 in the constellation Sagittarius, toward the center of the Milky Way. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope captured this glittering scene using its Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys. ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen

There are a lot of stars in the center of the Milky Way. The bulge in the center of the Milky Way is caused by the flat wheel shape. The stars which make up the bulge are different from the ones lying in the plane as they are older and redder.

It is difficult to study this region as the dust obscures the view. The dust can change the appearance of stars in the clusters and make it hard to study them. Hubble can be used to measure how star colors change due to dust in the atmosphere. Knowing a star's true color and brightness can be used to estimate its age.

There are also stars within the bulge. The bulges around the black holes are shaped by the supermassive black holes. The black hole at the center of our galaxy, Sagittarius A*, was imaged in an international effort that used radio telescopes to detect the glowing gas around it. There are threads of dust and gas as well as stars in the region around the black hole.

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