NASA launched a series of images in honor of the anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched into orbit on April 24, 1990.
The managers chose an image of a celestial firework in a giant cluster of stars known as Westerlund 2, located about 20,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Carina. The cluster, consisting of about 3000 stars, is very young by astronomical standards, its age is estimated at 2 million years.
“This impressive image shows dense gas clouds and dust. The gas shrinks to form new stars,” said NASA chief scientist John Grunsfeld, an astronomer and former astronaut.
"This is a very energetic star-forming region. It contains some of the hottest, brightest, and most massive stars in the galaxy," added Hubble scientist Jennifer Weisman from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. "The main advantage of high-resolution photos taken by Hubble is that we can separate a star from other stars in regions such as this cluster. This will help us scientifically understand which stars are in this region and how they differ from We can study the characteristics of these stars due to Hubble's sensitive optics, "said Weissman.
The image combines the visible spectrum and the near infrared wavelength. Red light indicates the presence of hydrogen, and bluish-green hues indicate oxygen.
