Friday, January 21, 2011
APOD 3.1
This is a photo of globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, also known as NGC 104. It roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy and so does some 200 other globular star clusters. This is the second brightest globular star cluster (Omega Centauri being the brightest) as seen from Earth, and it is about 13,000 light-years away. It can be spotted by the naked-eye near the Small Magellanic Cloud in the constellation of the Toucan. This dense cluster is made up of several million stars in a volume of only 120 light-years across. The red giant stars on the outer regions of the cluster are easy to see as yellowish stars in this photo. Globular cluster 47 Tucanae also has x-ray binary star systems.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment