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Credit & Copyright: Anglo-Australian Telescope
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Explanation:
Hot blue stars shine brightly in
this beautiful, recently formed galactic or "open" star cluster.
Open cluster NGC
3293 is located in the constellation
Carina,
lies at a distance of about
8000 light years, and has a particularly high abundance of these young
bright stars.
A study of NGC 3293 implies that the blue stars are only about 6
million years old, whereas the cluster's
dimmer, redder stars appear to be about 20
million years old. If true, star formation in this open cluster took at
least 15 million years. Even this amount of time
is short, however, when
compared with the billions of years stars like our
Sun live, and the
over-ten billion year lifetimes of many
galaxies and our universe. NGC 3293 appears just in front dense dust lane emanating from the
Carina Nebula.
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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: open cluster
Publications with words: open cluster
See also:
- APOD: 2025 April 28 B Gum 37 and the Southern Tadpoles
- Open Star Clusters M35 and NGC 2158
- APOD: 2025 February 25 B M41: The Little Beehive Star Cluster
- APOD: 2025 February 11 B The Spider and the Fly
- APOD: 2024 October 29 B NGC 602: Stars Versus Pillars from Webb
- NGC 7789: Caroline s Rose
- APOD: 2024 July 2 B NGC 602: Oyster Star Cluster