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.

                               2020 January 23

                       Globular Star Cluster NGC 6752
                Image Credit & Copyright: Jose Joaquin Perez

   Explanation: Some 13,000 light-years away toward the southern
   constellation Pavo, the globular star cluster NGC 6752 roams the halo
   of our Milky Way galaxy. Over 10 billion years old, NGC 6752 follows
   clusters Omega Centauri and 47 Tucanae as the third brightest globular
   in planet Earth's night sky. It holds over 100 thousand stars in a
   sphere about 100 light-years in diameter. Telescopic explorations of
   the NGC 6752 have found that a remarkable fraction of the stars near
   the cluster's core, are multiple star systems. They also reveal the
   presence of blue straggle stars, stars which appear to be too young and
   massive to exist in a cluster whose stars are all expected to be at
   least twice as old as the Sun. The blue stragglers are thought to be
   formed by star mergers and collisions in the dense stellar environment
   at the cluster's core. This sharp color composite also features the
   cluster's ancient red giant stars in yellowish hues. (Note: The bright,
   spiky blue star at 11 o'clock from the cluster center is a foreground
   star along the line-of-sight to NGC 6752)

                       Tomorrow's picture: shadow play
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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