Hubble captures fireworkslike scene in space
Stars look like sparklers in the latest image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, which was released on America's 250th birthday.
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NASA celebrated the United States' 250th birthday with the release of a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope that resembles celestial sparklers.
The image shows globular cluster NGC 6426, a collection of stars in the Milky Way galaxy about 67,000 light-years from Earth.
"In this image, blue indicates the shorter wavelengths that are visible light, while red depicts the longer wavelengths of visible light, as well as some near-infrared light," NASA said. "Because the color and temperature of stars are directly related, we know that the blue stars in this image are hotter and the red stars are cooler."
Ancient stars shine in red, white and blue from a globular cluster almost as old as the universe itself in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA, and A. Dotter (Dartmouth College); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America))
The new image shows ancient stars, most of which are estimated to be 13 billion years old.
"Hubble took this image as part of a study of globular clusters in the Milky Way’s halo intended to determine their ages and shed light on the formation and evolution of the galaxy," NASA said. "Over the past three decades in orbit, Hubble has fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe."
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