This artist's impression shows how the Arches star cluster appears from deep inside the hub of our Milky Way Galaxy. Although hidden from our direct view, the massive cluster lies 25,000 light-years away and is the densest known gathering of young stars in our galaxy. The illustration is based on infrared observations with Hubble and with ground-based telescopes, which pierced our galaxy's dusty core and snapped images of the luminous cluster of about 2,000 stars.
Some of the brightest blue stars in this illustration are among the most massive stars astronomers found with the Hubble telescope, weighing about 130 times more than our Sun. The cluster is so young, about 2 to 2.5 million years old, that Hubble caught them before they exploded as supernovae. The cluster's massive stars are illuminating a wall of a giant hydrogen cloud [the reddish-purple filamentary structure along the right edge]. Large clouds like this one make hefty clusters like the Arches. The bright reddish object at upper right is the center of our galaxy, residing 100 light-years away from the Arches cluster. The glowing purple thread-like objects at lower left and the purple arcs at upper right are high-energy particles caught up in strong magnetic fields. Astronomers do not know the origin of these fields.
Credits
NASA, ESA and A. Schaller (for STScI)| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | Arches Cluster |
| Object Description | Star Cluster |
| Constellation | Sagittarius |
| Distance | 25,000 light-years away (8,000 parsecs) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
