The interstellar dust clouds are mottled so that different parts of the cluster look redder than other parts along our line of sight. This location leaves a lot of room for intervening interstellar dust particles between us and the cluster to scatter blue light, causing only the redder wavelengths to come through to Earth. The cluster is about 15,000 light-years from Earth. The location of this globular cluster, deep in the Milky Way in the constellation Sagittarius, means that it is shrouded in gas and dust which absorb and alter the starlight emanating from Terzan 12. These clusters orbit around the galactic center, but far above and below the pancake-flat plane of our galaxy, like bees buzzing around a hive. The Milky Way has about 150 ancient globular clusters at its outskirts. Stars in globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards the center. This colorful image of the globular star cluster Terzan 12 is a spectacular example of how dust in space affects starlight coming from background objects.Ī globular star cluster is a conglomeration of stars, arranged in a spheroidal shape. This makes the cluster appear redder than it normally would in Hubble's snapshots. And to further complicate things there is a lot of dust in the galactic plane that filters and scatters light from Terzan 12. Identifying them is tricky because they are embedded among the billions of stars in the Milky Way’s disk. They can also plunge right through the galactic plane. They orbit above and below the pancake-flat stellar disk of our galaxy. Despite their senility, globular clusters are on the go.

They contain aging stars and some of their burned-out stars are nearly as old as the universe itself. Globular clusters are the oldest inhabitants of our Milky Way. Now, shake the globe and that mimics the chaotic motion of stars inside a cluster. Like all globular star clusters, it is a compact beehive of hundreds of thousands of stars crowded together. A good example is the globular star cluster Terzan 12. Four Successful Women Behind the Hubble Space Telescope's Achievementsįor astronomers, space can be so cluttered that sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees.Characterizing Planets Around Other Stars.Measuring the Universe's Expansion Rate.

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