First of all, let’s wish a happy 25th birthday to the NASA Hubble Space Telescope, which will reach a quarter century of providing incredible information and pictures on Friday, April 24th.
To celebrate this momentous occasion, NASA released an absolutely stunning image captured by the telescope.
The bright lights in the center of the photo is actually a cluster of about 3,000 stars that was discovered by Bengt Westerlund, a Swedish astronomer, in the 1960s. That cluster is now known as Wusterlund 2 and is located about 20,000 light years away from Earth and measures between six and 13 light years from end to end. The 2-million year old cluster is part of the constellation Carina and located in a section of space called Gum 29. Aside from the stars, which are relatively young in terms of space, the blue/green hues are oxygen and the red is hydrogen.
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The image was captured with the near-infrared Wide Field Camera 3. NASA blended visible light data taken by Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys, a third generation imaging camera used for surveys or imaging campaigns. .
The Hubble Space telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 and is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, though it’s actually a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency.
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