At 23,000 light-years from Earth, the Pismis 26 star cluster, also known as Tonantzintla 2, shines like a Christmas tree. It contains thousands of stars that shine and stand out against the dark fabric of the universe. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope let us take a look at it.and it’s just as captivating as the other pictures you’ve taken.
If you look carefully you will see stars that shine with different intensity and color. The brightest are red and blue, and can be seen more at the edges of the star cluster. Each of these differences in color and brightness recorded by Hubble matters.
Pismis 26 is named after Paris Pismis, an Armenian astronomer. will be the first to discover a star cluster in 1959.. On the other hand, it was at the Tonantzintla observatory in Mexico that this galactic formation was first noticed. That’s why we can recognize him by two different names.
Where is Pismis 26 located? Although very close thanks to Hubble, it is 23,000 light-years away and its exact location can be traced back to the constellation Scorpius, not far from the galactic bulge. The latter is defined as the central group of stars in most spiral galaxies., very close to the galactic core. Of course, while in this constellation, Pismis 26 is also within the Milky Way.
The different colors of Pismis 26 captured by Hubble have a reason
To achieve red, light from stars goes through a process called interstellar reddening. This is due to large accumulations of dust.because they scatter short-wavelength blue light while letting through only long-wavelength reddish light. Thus, the color of a star is distorted when Hubble observes its light appearing red.
Why is there so much dust around this star cluster? Being so close to the galactic center, other celestial bodies also fall here. Among them are multi-zone gas and dust, attracted by the gravitational field of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* our galaxy.
With the help of Hubble, scientists have found that the stars that make up the Pismis 26 cluster are rich in metals. It means that these bodies have elements heavier than hydrogen and heliummost common in the entire universe.
The stars observed by Hubble are particularly rich in hydrogen, which may indicate that not all stars in the Pismis 26 cluster are of the same age. The age of this cluster is estimated at about 12 billion years.only 1700 thousand years less than the entire universe.
Source: Hiper Textual
