Credit: Don Figer ( Space Telescope Science Institute) and NASA/ESA

Penetrating 25, 000 light-years of obscuring dust and myriad stars, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided the clearest view yet of a pair of the largest young clusters of stars inside our Milky Way galaxy, located less than 100 light-years from the very centre of the Galaxy. Having the equivalent mass greater than 10, 000 stars like our sun, the monster clusters are ten times larger than typical young star clusters scattered throughout our Milky Way. Both clusters are destined to be ripped apart in just a few million years by gravitational tidal forces in the galaxy's core. But in the brief time they are around, they shine more brightly than any other star cluster in the Galaxy.

Provider: Hubble Space Telescope | ESA

Image Source: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/opo9930a/

Curator: ESA/Hubble, Garching bei München, Germany

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License