The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a celestial spectacle resembling a snowball-shaped mass, unveiling a cluster of stars within the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a galaxy in the Milky Way’s vicinity.
This discovery has provided astronomers with a clearer image of this stellar assembly and its significant attributes.
According to the space-focused website “Space.com,” the globular cluster, named NGC 2210, is situated approximately 158,000 light-years from Earth.
Remarkably, it boasts an estimated age of about 11.6 billion years, aligning it with the age of other globular clusters within the LMC as well as some of the oldest clusters in the halo of the Milky Way.
Interestingly, despite NGC 2210 being about 2.2 billion years younger than the universe itself, it is one of the relatively younger globular clusters observed in the LMC.
It was initially discovered during a 2017 research campaign, which included data used in creating the cluster’s image.
Other clusters observed during the same survey were older than NGC 2210, with four of them exceeding 13 billion years in age. This suggests they formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
A key to the longevity of globular clusters, which can contain thousands to millions of stars, may lie in their strong gravitational bonds.
The fact that NGC 2210 and other LMC clusters share similar ages to those in the Milky Way is a source of fascination for astronomers.
It implies that these clusters were formed around the same time, despite the likelihood that the LMC and our galaxy evolved independently.
This marks the first time the Hubble Telescope has captured such an object in space, providing comprehensive images of this globular cluster.
The Hubble Telescope’s revelation of NGC 2210 in the Large Magellanic Cloud offers a fascinating glimpse into the cosmic dance of star clusters.
This discovery not only enriches our understanding of the universe’s history but also highlights the interconnected nature of celestial formations, even in distant galaxies.
