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The Big Picture: Hubble peeks at the Milky Way's densest star cluster
Some parts of space are a little more crowded than others. The Arches Cluster, located 25,000 light-years from Earth, is currently the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way. For comparison, if you measured the distance between our sun and its nearest star, and used that as a radius for a section of the Arches Cluster, you would find more than 100,000 stars twinkling back at you. These balls of gas burn brightly -- NASA says 150 are among the brightest it's ever recorded -- which limits their natural lifespan to a few million years. Once their nuclear fuel has been depleted, they explode in breathtaking supernovas which create abnormally high volumes of heavy elements in the gas between the remaining stars. The image above was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in infrared; due to enormous dust clouds, the cluster is otherwise obscured and difficult to observe.
NASA discovers star clusters like Orion may have formed from the outside in
Astronomers have long thought that star clusters form when clouds of gas and dust condense, constructing themselves from the center out. But as recent findings suggest, this might not be the case. Researchers combing through data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and using infrared telescopes have offered a different take. After studying two clusters -- NGC 2024 at the center of the Flame Nebula and the Orion Nebula Cluster -- evidence showed that the stars on the outside for the formations where actually the oldest. "Our findings are counterintuitive," said study head Konstantin Getman. "It means we need to think harder and come up with more ideas of how stars like our sun are formed." Other possible explanations? Well, stars could continue to form in the center due to density, or older stars could've been pushed to the outside thanks to interactions with others. For now, the team looks to expand its search for a similar age range in other clusters.
