An image of NGC 6496, a 10.5-billion-year-old globular cluster, taken by Hubble and released on June 3, 2016. In 1826, Scottish astronomer James Dunlop located the cluster, which is roughly 35,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation Scorpius.
Credit: ESA/HUbble & Nasa, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
The paparazzi would be out in full force to capture images of these heavy-metal stars, if they weren’t cosmic in nature.
This Hubble Space Telscope image of NGC 6496, a 10.5-billion-year-old globular cluster, reveals the celestial home of stars comprised of more of the (surprisingly) metallic elements hydrogen and helium than typically found in clusters like this.
This particular cluster contains a mix of high-metallicity stars doubling as variable stars. A variable star fluctuates in brightness over time. Some of the stars in NGC 6496 are long-period variables — massive pulsating stars that change brightness in up to, and sometimes over, a thousand days — and short-period eclipsing binaries, dimming when a companion star eclipses them. [Related: Advanced Alien Civilizations Could Live in Globular Star Clusters]
Using the variability of these stars, astronomers can acquire details about them — mass, radius, luminosity, temperature, composition and even evolution — that may be otherwise unattainable.
0 of 10 questions complete
Hubble Quiz: Do You Know the Famous Space Telescope?
Hubble has revolutionized astronomers’ understanding of the universe since its April 1990 launch. Test your knowledge of the telescope in this quiz.
0 of questions complete
Scottish astronomer James Dunlop pinpointed NGC 6496 in 1826 in the constellation of Scorpius (The Scorpion), which lies about 35,000 light-years away from Earth.
The Hubble Space Telescope launched into space in April 1990 and is a joint project by NASA and the European Space Agency. The space-based observatory has beamed home more than 1 million observations of the universe during its 26 years of service. Using data from Hubble, nearly 13,000 scientific papers have been published, according to NASA officials.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com .
Let’s block ads! (Why?)
http://www.space.com/33152-heavy-metal-stars-hubble-telescope-photo.html Hubble Telescope Spies Sparkly Home of Heavy-Metal Stars (Photo)
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Hubble Telescope Spies Sparkly Home of Heavy-Metal Stars (Photo)
No comments:
Post a Comment