Skip to main content

Hubble captures an open star cluster in a nearby satellite galaxy

The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured an image of a beautiful star cluster called NGC 1858, located in an area full of star-forming regions. This area is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies, and is located 160,000 light-years away and is thought to be around 10 million years old.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is one of several satellite galaxies to the Milky Way, which are smaller galaxies that are gravitationally bound to our galaxy. Along with its companion, the Small Magellanic Cloud, it orbits around the Milky Way and will eventually collide with our galaxy in billions of years’ time.

Against a backdrop littered with tiny pinpricks of light glint a few, brighter stars. This whole collection is NGC 1858, an open star cluster in the northwest region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way that boasts an abundance of star-forming regions. NGC 1858 is estimated to be around 10 million years old.clock
Against a backdrop littered with tiny pinpricks of light glint a few, brighter stars. This whole collection is NGC 1858, an open star cluster in the northwest region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way that boasts an abundance of star-forming regions. NGC 1858 is estimated to be around 10 million years old. NASA, ESA and G. Gilmore (University of Cambridge); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

This particular star cluster is a type called an open cluster, which means it is not as tightly bound by gravity as some other structures and has a more irregular shape. In addition, the amount of dust and gas present here means that it can be classified as an emission nebula, as light from the stars in the region has ionized the gas and caused it to emit its own light.

These features make this region of scientific interest in learning about star formation. “The stars within this young cluster are at different phases of their evolution, making it a complex collection,” Hubble scientists write. “Within NGC 1858, researchers have detected a protostar, a very young, emerging star, indicating that star formation within the cluster may still be active or has stopped very recently. The presence of an emission nebula also suggests that star formation recently occurred here, since the radiation required to ionize the gas of the nebula comes from stars that only live a short time.”

The image was taken using both visible light and infrared wavelengths. Although Hubble primarily operates in the visible light range, its instruments can also look in some regions of the infrared, allowing researchers to build up a more complete picture of complex structures of dust and gas such as nebulae.

Editors' Recommendations

Georgina Torbet
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
Hubble sees the changing seasons on Jupiter and Uranus
[Jupiter: left] - The forecast for Jupiter is for stormy weather at low northern latitudes. A prominent string of alternating storms is visible, forming a ‘vortex street’ as some planetary astronomers call it. [Uranus: right] - Uranus’s north pole shows a thickened photochemical haze that looks similar to the smog over cities. Several little storms can be seen near the edge of the polar haze boundary. Note: The planets do not appear in this image to scale.

Our planet isn't the only place in the solar system with dramatic weather changes. Other planets in the solar system also experience seasons, depending on their distance from the sun, and that affects their climates. One of the many jobs of the Hubble Space Telescope is to monitor the changing seasons on other planets, particularly the larger outer planets which aren't so often observed. And this week, scientist have released their newest views of Jupiter and Uranus, taken by Hubble and showing seasonal changes on the two planets.

Jupiter is far from the sun, so most of its heat comes not from outside but from within. Jupiter is thought to have a very high core temperature, which may be a result of how it was formed but could also be topped up by processes inside the planet. As this heat escapes from the planet's interior, it affects its atmosphere which contains multiple layers and has unusual features like geometric storms at its poles.

Read more
A sparkling field of stars cluster together in Hubble image
This image shows just a portion of M55, the cluster as a whole appears spherical because the stars’ intense gravitational attraction pulls them together. Hubble’s clear view above Earth’s atmosphere resolves individual stars in this cluster. Ground-based telescopes can also resolve individual stars in M55, but fewer stars are visible.

A sea of stars sparkles in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Showing an tremendous cluster of stars called a globular cluster, this view is located in the galaxy Messier 55.

A globular cluster is a group of stars which is tens of thousands or even millions of stars, and which is held together by gravity. That's why these clusters tend to form spherical shapes as the forces of gravity hold the cluster together.

Read more
A small, fuzzy dwarf galaxy in our neighborhood captured by Hubble
UGCA 307 hangs against an irregular backdrop of distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The small galaxy consists of a diffuse band of stars containing red bubbles of gas that mark regions of recent star formation, and lies roughly 26 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus. Appearing as just a small patch of stars, UGCA 307 is a diminutive dwarf galaxy without a defined structure — resembling nothing more than a hazy patch of passing cloud.

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy in our backyard, cosmically speaking, taken as part of a project to image nearby galaxies. Galaxy UGCA 307 is located 26 million light-years away in the constellation of Corvus, or The Crow, a small constellation visible from the southern hemisphere which was documented as far back as 1,000 years BCE.

There is just a small cluster of stars within this galaxy, as it is a type called a dwarf galaxy. These are defined as galaxies with just a few billion stars, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the hundreds of billions of stars that are found in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Read more