By ESA/Hubble
December 19, 2021
Hubble Space Telescope image of the open star cluster NGC 1755. Credit: ESA/Hubble & & NASA, A. Milone, G. Gilmore
The open star cluster NGC 1755 resembles a pinch of salt scattered on a jet-black table linen in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This collection of stars lives in one the Milky Ways near neighbors– the Large Magellanic Cloud– and determines 120 light-years from side to side. Regardless of this outstanding breadth, NGC 1755 is a member of the smaller class of star clusters. Star clusters are gravitationally bound collections of stars, and can be found in 2 main ranges– smaller sized open clusters like NGC 1755, which are hosts to younger stars, and giant globular clusters, which can contain millions of older stars.
A population of stars is a group of stars with similar properties such as age or chemical structure, and these populations supply astronomers with valuable insights into the births, lives, and deaths of stars. Hubbles eagle-eyed vision was a vital asset when observing NGC 1755– with so lots of stars packed into a little area of sky, Hubbles high-resolution Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 permitted private stars in the cluster to be identified.