Hubble Produces Amazing View of Messier 107

Astronomers operating the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope recently produced an amazing view of the globular star cluster Messier 107, which is located around 20,000 light-years away, in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer).

The image shows countless stars that are several billion years old. Though they appear to clutter the photo, these stars are actually not that tightly-bound together. Hundreds of thousands of stellar objects lie in Messier 107, which is just one of more than 150 globular clusters in the Milky Way.

Interestingly, the origin of these clusters is still hotly debated, as astronomers have yet to reach a consensus on the matter. The exact influence that these structures have on the evolution of their host galaxies is mysterious as well.

Hubble's field of view covers an area of 3.4-by 3.4-arcminutes in this photo, which was snapped using the renowned telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC-3) instrument.