Nasa picture of the day star clusters archive#
Nasa picture of the day star clusters professional#

Stars in globular clusters formed in the early days of the universe, around 10 billion years ago, according to the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, making them some of the oldest stars in existence. But a telescope reveals their true form: thousands to millions of stars form a spherical shape with a bright, dense core. If viewed with the naked eye, globular clusters look like faint smudges of light against the darkness of space. This image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, which is run by ESA and NASA. Globular star cluster NGC 6717 is located about 20,000 light-years from Earth, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). There are three main types of star clusters: globular clusters, open clusters, and stellar associations, each of which has different properties that provide different information to astronomers. Comparing the two 'helps you understand what's going on on the insides of the stars and how they evolved throughout their lifetimes,' according to Steffen. 'If you have a star cluster that's 100 million years old, and then you have a star cluster that's a billion years old, you basically have two snapshots of the lives of stars,' Steffen said. Stars within a galaxy, on the other hand, can be a variety of ages and have a variety of compositions, Steffen said. That's why stellar clusters are so important to astronomers who are studying stellar evolution. Clicking on any image will open a larger and higher-resolution version in a new tab, which you can spend hours staring at.Īnd if you’re a backyard astronomer yourself, you can submit your own stellar images to the site via the Submissions page.Another factor that differentiates star clusters from galaxies is that within each cluster, stars are roughly the same age and made from roughly the same materials, given that they formed from the same molecular cloud, according to the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF). The site itself is pretty simple and straightforward and keeps the focus on the thousands of beautiful images it’s posted over the decades, like Pleiades: The Seven Sisters Star Cluster, NGC 1499: The California Nebula, Stars over an Erupting Volcano, Galaxies in the River, The Magnificent Horsehead Nebula, and the Ghost Aurora over Canada. Likewise, you can also go to the site’s index and view pictures by topic, like Space Stations, Binary Stars, Dark Matter, Jupiter’s Moons, Messier Objects, or Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei.

Nasa picture of the day star clusters archive#

Only the current day’s image is actively displayed on the site, but a quick visit to the archive will take you to a list of all past images listed by date, starting with the most recent.

Of course, the site has a companion mobile app for iOS, so you can get your astronomy fix on the go. The site is also available-as a mirror site-in dozens of other countries and languages, making it easier for everyone to enjoy the images every day.

Nasa picture of the day star clusters professional#

Across the top of the homepage, it says “Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.” In fact, the site is the largest collection of annotated astronomy images on the internet. The two are both professional astronomers and were once even office-mates at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The exciting website was founded in 1995 by friends Robert J. Update, 12/20/21: Checked that links and content are still good. However, with the help of NASA, astronomers, astrophotographers, and other scientific contributors, you can view the sights of our universe directly on the Astronomy Picture of the Day website. It’s always a wondrous experience to look up at the night sky and gaze at the beautiful constellations, but the naked eye can only see so much.