The more we would advance towards the core of our Milky Way galaxy, the more crowded the area becomes with stars. Unfortunately, there’s no way to travel that far into the galaxy for now, but we can hope that to change at some point in the future.
One of the most spectacular places located toward the Milky Way’s core is the Terzan 9 globular cluster. It’s positioned somewhere in the Sagittarius constellation, meaning one of the zodiac’s constellations, and which is located in the Southern celestial hemisphere.
The Hubble Space Telescope took a great picture of the Terzan 9 globular cluster, and you can see it below:
Our latest Picture of the Week features a cosmic treasure chest! This star-studded image shows the globular cluster Terzan 9 in the constellation Sagittarius, towards the centre of the Milky Way.
Credit: @esa / @HUBBLE_space / @NASA , R. Cohen pic.twitter.com/zZN9pFQ5VN
— HUBBLE (@HUBBLE_space) June 13, 2022
A globular cluster can simply be defined as a spherical collection of stars. As you’ve probably already guessed, gravity is the ‘glue’ behind these majestic structures, and their cores have the highest concentration of stars.
Trying to guess how many stars exist in the center of the Milky Way would indeed be mind-boggling. Astronomers estimate that there’s a total of roughly 200 billion stars in the entire galaxy, but as we said, most of these stars are located in its core. That’s why all the representations of the Milky Way show the galaxy with a bright kernel. That’s how pretty much all the other galaxies are, however.
Astronomers in charge of Hubble said as sci-news.com quotes:
As the new image of Terzan 9 demonstrates, the hearts of globular clusters can be densely packed with stars,
The night sky in this image is strewn with so many stars that it resembles a sea of sequins or a vast treasure chest crammed with gold.
While Hubble is still very active when it comes to space exploration, its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), doesn’t fall short either. Webb is currently calibrating its powerful gears in order to bring the first full-color photos of the Universe next month.
