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NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently captured a sparkling starfield in the heart of the milky way. The image shows a densely packed, roughly spherical collection of stars.
This sparkling starfield is a globular cluster ESO 520-21, also known as Palomar 6. The cluster is located near the center of the Milky Way in the constellation of Ophiuchus.
Interstellar absorption affects some wavelengths of light more than others, changing the colors of astronomical objects. As a result, the objects appear redder than they are. This process is known as reddening, which makes determining the properties of globular clusters particularly difficult.