Hubble Spies Starry Chandelier

An ancient inhabitant of our galaxy glows in this Hubble image: the globular cluster NGC 6723, nicknamed the Chandelier Cluster. It sparkles with countless lights, each "bulb" a star 27,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Globular clusters harbor some of the Milky Way’s oldest stars, often exceeding 10 billion years in age and in some cases nearly as old as the universe.

Astronomers think these clusters formed early, potentially billions of years before the thin disk where the Sun orbits, but the details of their formation remain uncertain. Hubble first observed NGC 6723 as part of a survey (program 10775, PI: Sarajedini) that imaged 65 globular clusters in visible and near-infrared light, enabling studies of cluster ages and internal dynamics such as massive stars sinking toward the center while lower-mass stars drift outward.

Those data have produced hundreds of published papers.

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