FROM: NASA
The
Hubble Space Telescope captured a crowd of stars that looks rather like a
stadium darkened before a show, lit only by the flashbulbs of the audience’s
cameras. Yet the many stars of this object, known as Messier 107, are not a
fleeting phenomenon, at least by human reckoning of time -- these ancient stars
have gleamed for many billions of years.,br /> Messier 107 is one of more
than 150 globular star clusters found around the disc of the Milky Way galaxy.
These spherical collections each contain hundreds of thousands of extremely old
stars and are among the oldest objects in the Milky Way. The origin of globular
clusters and their impact on galactic evolution remains somewhat unclear, so
astronomers continue to study them.,br /> Messier 107 can be found in the
constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer) and is located about 20,000
light-years from our solar system.,br /> French astronomer Pierre Méchain
first noted the object in 1782, and British astronomer William Herschel
documented it independently a year later. A Canadian astronomer, Helen Sawyer
Hogg, added Messier 107 to Charles Messier's famous astronomical catalogue in
1947.,br /> This picture was obtained with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s
Advanced Camera for Surveys. ,br /> Image credit: ESA/NASA
