A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope has shown a “sea” of stars near the center of the Milky Way, which is an ancient globular star cluster.
According to scientists, the stars in this image are around 12 billion years old, making them among the oldest stars in the universe.
The stars of Pismis 26 have a nearly spherical structure. The cluster appears to contain mostly red stars, with some bright blue stars around the edges. These colors are partly due to the cluster’s estimated age of 12 billion years, meaning it contains many of the oldest stars in our galaxy, if not the universe.
Additionally, some of the cluster’s coloration comes from a phenomenon known as blushing, which is the result of dense stardust blocking short-wavelength blue light while allowing longer-wavelength red light to pass through more easily. .
Pismis 26 is located near the galactic bulge surrounding Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way. This part of the galaxy is particularly rich in dust, thanks to the presence of the black hole and its incredible gravity, as well as all the material surrounding it in the bulge and the dense field of stars it contains.
