Hubble Space Telescope shows Webb a thing or two with spectacular new photo - Space.com

While the James Webb Space Telescope is already revealing caller insights into the deepest recesses of the disposable universe, the Hubble Space Telescope is acold from obsolete, arsenic a caller photograph of the Terzan 1 clump shows.

The photo, released connected Oct. 10 by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), which jointly tally the mission, shows a globular clump located 22,000 light-years from Earth, revealing a gorgeous palette of different-colored stars successful singular clarity. 

This isn't the Hubble Space Telescope's archetypal photograph of the Terzan 1 cluster; NASA released a erstwhile presumption successful 2015. According to an ESA statement, the 2015 photograph was taken utilizing Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, which operated until 2009. That instrumentality had a overmuch little solution than the observatory's existent Wide Field Camera 3, which captured the caller representation and which astronauts installed during the past Hubble servicing ngo . 

Related: The champion Hubble Space Telescope images of each time!

The caller photograph shows the extent of the globular cluster successful acold much item than the erstwhile image, revealing a multitude of red, aging stars bound unneurotic by their communal gravity. Globular clusters are typically a postulation of astir a 100 1000 stars successful a tight, astir spherical shape. The stars are packed unneurotic truthful tightly that the mean region betwixt immoderate 2 idiosyncratic stars is astir 1 light-year, which is astir one-fourth of the region betwixt the prima and our nearest neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. 

Often, these clusters are location to immoderate of the oldest stars successful our galaxy, which look reddish successful the Hubble image, portion the bluer stars successful the photograph are younger foreground stars that aren't portion of the cluster, though they decidedly adhd immoderate panache to the stellar canvas. 

"The ages of the stars successful the globular clump archer america that they were formed during the aboriginal stages of postulation formation," ESA officials wrote successful a 2015 connection astir the older photo. "Studying them tin besides assistance america to recognize however galaxies formed."

Globular clusters similar Terzan 1 are a important section root of X-rays, ESA noted. "It is apt that these X-rays travel from binary prima systems that incorporate a dense neutron prima and a mean star," officials wrote. A neutron star is the super-dense remnant near down by a sun-like prima exploding erstwhile it runs retired of fuel. "The neutron prima drags worldly from the companion star, causing a burst of X-ray emission."

Scientists aren't definite however galore stellar-mass oregon intermediate-mass black holes lurk wrong globular clusters similar Terzan 1. Since it is intolerable to "see" a achromatic spread — they sorb airy alternatively than radiate it — the champion mode for a scope to observe them is by observing their gravitational power connected surrounding stars. Unfortunately, this is overmuch much hard to bash successful a globular clump due to the fact that of the density of stars.

Follow america connected Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens successful caller tab) or on Facebook (opens successful caller tab).