NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently captured the globular cluster NGC 1805 image containing many beautiful, colorful stars packed close together. This cluster of colorful stars located the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way.
NGC 1805 is located approximately 163,000 light-years away in the southern constellation of Dorado. The cluster is also known as ESO 85-32 and KMHK 459.
The striking difference in star colors is illustrated beautifully in this image, which combines different types of light: blue stars, shining brightest in near-ultraviolet light, and red stars, illuminated in red and near-infrared.
The stars orbit closely to one another. In the dense center of one of these clusters, stars are 100 to 1,000 times closer together than the nearest stars are to our Sun, making planetary systems around them unlikely.
Usually, globular clusters contain stars that are born at the same time. But, this is not the case with NGC 1805. The cluster appears to host two different populations of stars with ages millions of years apart.
Astronomers noted, “Observing such clusters of stars can help astronomers understand how stars evolve, and what factors determine whether they end their lives as white dwarfs or explode as supernovae.”