Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2019 October 13

                  A Stellar Jewel Box: Open Cluster NGC 290
      Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Acknowledgement: E. Olzewski (U.
                                  Arizona)

   Explanation: Jewels don't shine this bright -- only stars do. Like gems
   in a jewel box, though, the stars of open cluster NGC 290 glitter in a
   beautiful display of brightness and color. The photogenic cluster,
   pictured here, was captured in 2006 by the orbiting Hubble Space
   Telescope. Open clusters of stars are younger, contain few stars, and
   contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters
   of stars. NGC 290 lies about 200,000 light-years distant in a
   neighboring galaxy called the Small Cloud of Magellan (SMC). The open
   cluster contains hundreds of stars and spans about 65 light years
   across. NGC 290 and other open clusters are good laboratories for
   studying how stars of different masses evolve, since all the open
   cluster's stars were born at about the same time.

               Tomorrow's picture: andromeda before photoshop
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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