Hubble Spies Glittering Star Cluster in Nearby Galaxy

This glittering ball of stars is the globular cluster NGC 1898, which lies near the center of our galactic neighbor, the Large Magellanic Cloud.
That dwarf galaxy hosts an extremely rich population of star clusters, making it an ideal laboratory for investigating star formation.

Discovered in November 1834 by British astronomer John Herschel, NGC 1898 has been scrutinized numerous times by @NASAHubble. Today we know that globular clusters are some of the oldest known objects in the universe and are relics of the first epochs of galaxy formation.

We already have a pretty good understanding of the Milky Way’s globular clusters. Our studies on globular clusters in nearby dwarf galaxies just started. Observations of NGC 1898 will help to determine whether their properties are similar to the ones in our Milky Way, or if they have different features due to being in a different cosmic environment.

This image was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA Larger image