Omega Centauri is a globular cluster of stars more than 15,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. Omega Centauri was discovered in 1677 by Edmond Halley.
Peering through the thick dust clouds of our galaxy's "bulge" (the myriads of stars surrounding its centre), and revealing an amazing amount of detail, a team of astronomers has unveiled an unusual mix of stars in the stellar grouping known as Terzan 5. Never observed anywhere in the bulge before, this peculiar "cocktail" of stars suggests that Terzan 5 is in fact one of the bulge's primordial building blocks, most likely the relic of a proto-galaxy that merged with the Milky Way during its... Read Full Story
New episode every Monday!
Is that all?
Fact Sheet: Hercules Globular Cluster
Aliases: Messier 13, M13, NGC 6205, Great Globular Cluster in Hercules.
Location: Above the Milky Way’s galactic plane, inside its halo.
Distance from Earth: 25,000 Light Years.
Mass: 600,000 Solar Masses (10 36 kg).
Diameter: 150 Light Years.
More information:
The Hercules Globular Cluster is in the constellation of Hercules and has a close neighboring globular cluster, M92 which is fainter... Read Full Story
Here is the transcript for my podcast about how to see the Broken Engagement Ring, globular cluster M68, and the Helix Galaxy this week.
Check out the Astronomy.com's interactive star chart — StarDome — to see an accurate map of your sky. It'll help you locate some of this week's key targets. Astronomy magazine subscribers have access to a slew of cool functions with StarDome PLUS.
Each week, I highlight three different night-sky targets for you to see:
One object you can find with... Read Full Story
With long time debates by scientists regarding the existence of middleweight black holes, the latest data that was gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope instruments and the Gemini South Chili telescope have shown us that the Omega Centauri, the largest star cluster in the sky, is observed to possibly contain an intermediate-mass black hole in its center. It is considered a prospective missing link in the evolution of our universe’s first stellar black holes, ending with the supermassive... Read Full Story
Could the Milky Way really be full of rogue, planet devouring black holes? It looks that way. A recent simulation of black holes merger revealed that there could be literally hundreds of rogue black holes scattered across the Milky Way galaxy. Each one would weigh several thousand times the mass of the sun, so if these bad guys exist—why haven’t we identified them already? “Rogue black holes like this would be very difficult to spot,” says
Vanderbilt astronomer Kelly Holley-Bockelmann... Read Full Story
More, More, More
The Omega Centauri cluster glistens with millions of stars, as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Globular clusters such as this orbit around the outside of the Milky Way galaxy, and many of their stars formed over 12 billion years ago when the universe was still young. Omega Centauri stands out as the biggest and brightest of 150 or so globular clusters nearby. The red and yellow dots indicating older red giants while blue dots indicate younger stars such... Read Full Story
« Uruguay Makes it Official: Adoption by Gays and Lesbians Approved |
Main
| Gerard Butler Has a Laugh Clenching Donuts Between His Ass Cheeks »
09/10/2009
NASA has released four images shot with the new Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), installed aboard Hubble in May 2009, during Servicing Mission 4 . Here's some of their explanation regarding the image above:
"NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a
colorful assortment of 100,000 stars... Read Full Story
Light of A Hundred Thousand Suns
Messier 55 is a globular cluster in the constellation Sagittarius. It is also known as M55 or NGC 6809. M55 lies about 17,300 light years from Earth.
French astronomer Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille discovered it in 1752. He was also known for naming 15 constellations in the southern hemisphere, among other accomplishments. Charles Messier added the cluster to his famous catalog of sky objects in 1778.
Globular clusters are compact, spherical... Read Full Story
New episode every Monday!
Is that all?
Fact Sheet: Hercules Globular Cluster
Aliases: Messier 13, M13, NGC 6205, Great Globular Cluster in Hercules.
Location: Above the Milky Way’s galactic plane, inside its halo.
Distance from Earth: 25,000 Light Years.
Mass: 600,000 Solar Masses (10 36 kg).
Diameter: 150 Light Years.
More information:
The Hercules Globular Cluster is in the constellation of Hercules and has a close neighboring globular cluster, M92 which is... Read Full Story
Each week, Astronomy magazine Senior Editor Michael Bakich , a master at explaining how to observe, posts a podcast about three objects or events you can see in the sky.
In each episode, Michael highlights:
One object you can see without any optical aid
One object you can see with a small (4-inch) telescope
One object you can see with at least an 8-inch telescope
Targets for July 17-24, 2009
Binoculars: Barnard's E Small telescope: The Double Double 8-inch or larger... Read Full Story
