Dec 8, 2010 11:59 GMT  ·  By
This is a close-up photo of the Messier 107 globular star cluster, located some 21,000 light-years away from Earth
   This is a close-up photo of the Messier 107 globular star cluster, located some 21,000 light-years away from Earth

Astronomers operating at the La Silla Observatory, in Chile, announce that they were able in a recent study to capture an amazing image of one of the 150+ globular star clusters orbiting our galaxy.

These cosmic structures are made up of very old stars, which came together in larger groups. The stellar formations orbit the Milky Way closely, and may be gobbled up in cosmic future.

In order to understand the clusters in more detail, scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the organization that operates the La Silla facility, decided to focus their attention on the cluster called Messier 107.

This particular object was discovered by astronomer Pierre Méchain back in April 1782. Famed astronomer William Herschel, for whom the ESA telescope is named, rediscovered it on May 12, 1793.

In order to capture the new image, astronomers used the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope's Wide Field Camera (WFI) instrument, which was able to use blue, green and near-infrared filters to snap the photo attached to this article.

The view of Messier 107 is very sharp in this new take on the cluster, revealing the inner structure of the cluster. Locked within could be answers to questions about how the Milky Way formed and developed over billions of years of cosmic evolution.

Experts say that the object is also called NGC 6171, and explain that it lies some 21,000 light-years away from Earth. For comparison, the diameter of the Milky Way is 100,000 light-years.

“Thousands of stars in globular clusters like this one are concentrated into a space that is only about twenty times the distance between our Sun and its nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, across,” ESO experts say in a statement.

“A significant number of these stars have already evolved into red giants, one of the last stages of a star’s life, and have a yellowish color in this image,” the astronomers go on to say.

Typically, stars such as the one in Messier 107 developed over 10 billion years ago, long before our own star appeared. But the Sun will reach the red giant phase as well within a few billion years.

Once this happens, it will engulf Mercury, Venus and Earth, and perhaps even Mars, before deflating into a helium-powered white dwarf. As this happens, the orbits of the dwarf and giant planets in the solar system will be rearranged.

“Globular clusters are among the oldest objects in the Universe,” the ESO crew adds.

“And since the stars within a globular cluster formed from the same cloud of interstellar matter at roughly the same time, they are all low-mass stars, as lightweights burn their hydrogen fuel supply much more slowly than stellar behemoths,” they add.

“Globular clusters formed during the earliest stages in the formation of their host galaxies and therefore studying these objects can give significant insights into how galaxies, and their component stars, evolve,” the ESO team concludes.