14 DAY TRIAL // Astronomers with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have recently used the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter (7.2-foot) telescope at the La Silla Observatory, in Chile, to collect this amazing image of the bright star cluster Messier 7. This cluster is one of the few that can be seen with the unaided eye.
Since M7 is located just 800 light-years from Earth, it has made for an appealing target for astronomical studies for many centuries. The object, also known as NGC 6475, contains around 100 bright, young stars and is located in the constellation of Scorpius.
Behind these stars you can clearly see a myriad of other stars, which lie towards the core of the Milky Way. The entire M7 cluster is estimated to be no more than 200 million years old, astronomers say. The blue stars that pop out in the image above are the youngest and largest of all objects in the cluster.
Messier 7 is an open star cluster, meaning that all of its stars were formed from the same giant molecular gas cloud. Astronomers at ESO say that the darker streaks visible in this image may be the remnants of that cloud, but they add that this is not set in stone as other phenomena may account for their presence.