Posted on 04/25/2014 5:23:47 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Explanation: "Beautiful Nebula discovered between the Balance [Libra] & the Serpent [Serpens] ..." begins the description of the 5th entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous catalog of nebulae and star clusters. Though it appeared to Messier to be fuzzy and round and without stars, Messier 5 (M5) is now known to be a globular star cluster, 100,000 stars or more, bound by gravity and packed into a region around 165 light-years in diameter. It lies some 25,000 light-years away. Roaming the halo of our galaxy, globular star clusters are ancient members of the Milky Way. M5 is one of the oldest globulars, its stars estimated to be nearly 13 billion years old. The beautiful star cluster is a popular target for Earthbound telescopes. Of course, deployed in low Earth orbit on April 25, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has also captured its own stunning close-up view that spans about 20 light-years near the central region of M5. Even close to its dense core at the left, the cluster's aging red and blue giant stars and rejuvenated blue stragglers stand out in yellow and blue hues in the sharp color image.
(Excerpt) Read more at 129.164.179.22 ...
[Credit: HST, ESA, NASA]
The big one is messier than the small one.
There are red ovals to the left of the large, yellow stars in the image.
They’re easy to see in the expanded image on the APOD site.
Are they some sort of lens artifact? Or... Aliens?
Second to the right, and straight on till morning.
:’)
Could be an artifact, could be something much closer in that’s silhouetted. :’)
UFOs? ALIENS!! ;-D
Lots of blue giants in that cluster. Blue stars, new stars. And some of the red stars are 13 billion years old? That’s an interesting mix.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
