NASA - Hubble Space Telescope patch.
July 31, 2020
Looking its best ever is the star cluster NGC 2203, here imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Aside from its dazzling good looks, this cluster of stars contains lots of astronomical treats that have helped astronomers puzzle together the lifetimes of stars.
A main-sequence star, like our Sun, is the term applied to a star during the longest period of its life, when it burns fuel steadily. Our Sun’s fuel will run out in approximately 6 billion years, and it will then move on to the next stage of its life when it will turn into a red giant. Astronomers studying NGC 2203, which contains stars that are roughly twice as massive as our Sun, found that rotation rates might be a factor as to why some of the stars stay longer than usual in this main-sequence phase of their life.
Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
- High-resolution view of NGC 2203 from ESA's (the European Spage Agency) website: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/potw2030a/
For more information about Hubble, visit:
http://hubblesite.org/
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
http://www.spacetelescope.org/
Text Credits: ESA/NASA/Rob Garner/Image, Animation Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Girardi.
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