Using data from Hubble, scientists looked into the future for 10,000 years

Original author: physorg.com
  • Transfer
image

The color image taken on the Wide Field Camera 3, located on board the NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, shows the central part of the giant cluster of stars of the Omega Centauri . All the stars in the picture move in a random direction, like a swarm of bees. Astronomers used the huge resolution of the Hubble telescope to determine the positions of stars in the period from 2002 to 2006. Based on these measurements, they can predict the future motion of stars. The lower part of the picture shows the future position of the stars located on a fragment of the upper part, framed. Each strip is the movement of a star in the next 600 years. The movement between two points corresponds to approximately 30 years.
Photo: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)

The globular cluster of stars of the Omega Centauri has attracted the attention of sky researchers since the ancient astronomer Ptolemy first cataloged it. However, Ptolemy believed that this was one star. He did not know that the “star” is actually a swarm of almost 10 million stars located in the orbit of a common center of gravity.

The stars are so densely arranged that scientists had to wait for Hubble's power to look deep into the "hive" and select individual stars. The Hubble picture was so detailed that you can see the movement of stars in a relatively short period of time.

An accurate measurement of the trajectories of the stars will help to understand how star clusters formed in the early Universe, and whether a black hole is located in the center of mass, about 10,000 times more massive than our Sun.

By analyzing images taken over a four-year period on a Hubble camera, astronomers made the most accurate measurements of the motion of more than 100,000 stars from the cluster. Today it is the largest study of the motion of stars in all clusters.

Based on the data obtained, a video was made simulating the motion of stars in the next 10,000 years.


Also popular now: