Hubble image archive
Compass Image for Coma Cluster
This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of the immense Coma cluster of over 1,000 galaxies, located 300 million light-years from Earth. Hubble's incredible sharpness was used to do a comprehensive census of the cluster's most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star cl...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2018
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2018-44-4270-image
This is a Hubble Space Telescope mosaic of the immense Coma cluster of over 1,000 galaxies, located 300 million light-years from Earth. Hubble's incredible sharpness was used to do a comprehensive census of the cluster's most diminutive members: a whopping 22,426 globular star clusters (circled in green). Among the earliest homesteaders of the universe, globular star clusters are snow-globe-shaped islands of several hundred thousand ancient stars. The survey found the globular clusters scattered in the space between the galaxies. They have been orphaned from their home galaxies through galaxy tidal interactions within the bustling cluster. Astronomers will use the globular cluster field for mapping the distribution of matter and dark matter in the Coma galaxy cluster.
Credits
NASA, ESA, J. Mack (STScI), and J. Madrid (Australian Telescope National Facility)More Images From This Period
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov