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Hubble Neatly Captures Messier's Ancient Stars

Posted by timothy on from the leaves-them-on-public-display dept.

New submitter DevotedSkeptic writes "Hubble has produced a crisp image of the Messier 56 Globular Cluster. Messier originally noted that this object was nebula without stars. When he originally viewed the cluster in 1779, telescopes were not powerful enough to see more than a fuzzy ball. The crisp focused view we get from Hubble enables us to easily see the globular cluster and ancient stars contained within. Comparing observations from Hubble with results from the standard theory of stellar evolution, scientists have calculated the age Messier 56 at 13 billion years."

1 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Who the **** do we think we are? by Weatherlawyer · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    [IMGCENTER=http://files.myopera.com/Weatherlawyer/blog/Messiers%20object%20an%20Archimedes%20spiral.JPG] This picture kind of sums up everything I have been thinking the last day or so. So remote that Messier couldn't make it out much more than as a patchy blur 2 or 3 centuries ago.

    Now I can see spirals in it. And what is the use of the Hubble?
    It can tell us how old we are. Why is this thing set out in an Archimedes spiral?
    That's what I want to know. Who the hell cares how old it is?

    Stupid stupid people.
    But can we at least agree that it is beautiful?

    So why isn't it ugly?

    We have never seen it before. It had no reason to be pretty.
    Yet it is.

    Diamond bright, the sky at night reflects the glory of Jehovah.