A dazzling jewel box of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud

2 November 2020 Astronomy Now

The Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this stunning image of the globular cluster NGC 1783, a spectacular collection of suns in the Large Magellanic Cloud some 160,000 light years from Earth with a total mass of about 170,000 times that of the Sun. Based on the colour and brightness of its stars, NGC 1783 is thought to be less than 1.5 billion years old, a relative youngster when it comes to globular clusters. It is thought to have undergone at least two episodes of star formation 50 million to 100 million years apart.

NGC 1783 (click for larger view). Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA; acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla.com)

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