esahubble_potw1852a December 24th, 2018
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reveals an ancient, glimmering ball of stars called NGC 1466. It is a globular cluster a gathering of stars all held together by gravity that is slowly moving through space on the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of our closest galactic neighbours. NGC 1466 certainly is one for extremes. It has a mass equivalent to roughly 140 000 Suns and an age of around 13.1 billion years, making it almost as old as the Universe itself. This fossil-like relic from the early Universe lies some 160 000 light-years away from us. NGC 1466 is one of the 5 clusters in the LMC in which the level of dynamical evolution (or "dynamical age") was measured.
Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA
Image Source: https://esahubble.org/images/potw1852a/
Curator: ESA/Hubble, Baltimore, MD, United States
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
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