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Credit & Copyright: Carlos Taylor
Explanation:
Also known as NGC 104,
47 Tucanae is a jewel of the southern sky.
Not a star but a dense cluster of stars,
it roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy along with some 200 other
globular star
clusters.
The second brightest globular cluster
(after Omega Centauri)
as seen from planet Earth, 47 Tuc lies about 13,000 light-years away.
It can be spotted with the naked eye close on the sky to the
Small Magellanic Cloud
in the constellation of
the Toucan.
The dense cluster is made up of hundreds of thousands
of stars in a
volume only about 120 light-years across.
Red giant stars
on the outskirts of the cluster are easy to pick out as yellowish stars in this
sharp telescopic portrait.
Tightly packed globular star cluster 47 Tuc is also home to
a star with the closest known
orbit around a black hole.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: globular cluster - black hole
Publications with words: globular cluster - black hole
See also: