Hubble Sees a Ten Billion Year Stellar Dance

Hubble Sees a Ten Billion Year Stellar Dance

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope offers this delightful view of the crowded stellar encampment called Messier 68, a spherical, star-filled region of space known as a globular cluster. Mutual gravitational attraction amongst a cluster’s hundreds of thousands or even millions of stars keeps stellar members in check, allowing globular clusters to hang together for many billions of years.

Astronomers can measure the ages of globular clusters by looking at the light of their constituent stars. The chemical elements leave signatures in this light, and the starlight reveals that globular clusters' stars typically contain fewer heavy elements, such as carbon, oxygen and iron, than stars like the Sun. Since successive generations of stars gradually create these elements through nuclear fusion, stars having fewer of them are relics of earlier epochs in the Universe. Indeed, the stars in globular clusters rank among the oldest on record, dating back more than 10 billion years.

How can people see something like this and think NASA is a waste of money? There is so much to see and learn hopefully we won't kill each other off before we can see something like this in person.

reply to post by buster2010

Since successive generations of stars gradually create these elements through nuclear fusion, stars having fewer of them are relics of earlier epochs in the Universe. Indeed, the stars in globular clusters rank among the oldest on record, dating back more than 10 billion years.

Thats why I am thinking that "globular" clusters are remnants of galaxies that have been absorbed by our own. The "core element" including maybe a singularity, are all thats left of an ancient dance between galaxies (ours won). I have no proof of that, just heard it recently and liked the sound if it.

Edit: Excellent pic by the way, thanks for bringing it. I wonder if life is possible on suns in and around there and if there is such a thing as "night" on any planets.

So awesome!, crazy how the twinkle of each one is so perfect.
10 BILLION YEARs (pinky raised to side of mouth)
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