We've updated our Privacy Policy to make it clearer how we use your personal data.

We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. You can read our Cookie Policy here.

Advertisement

Cosmic Duck Flock Spotted by Hubble

Cosmic Duck Flock Spotted by Hubble content piece image
A portion of Messier 11. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Dobbie et al.

Want a FREE PDF version of this news story?

Complete the form below and we will email you a PDF version of "Cosmic Duck Flock Spotted by Hubble"

Listen with
Speechify
0:00
Register for free to listen to this article
Thank you. Listen to this article using the player above.
Read time:
 

This star-studded image shows us a portion of Messier 11, an open star cluster in the southern constellation of Scutum (the Shield). Messier 11 is also known as the Wild Duck Cluster, as its brightest stars form a “V” shape that somewhat resembles a flock of ducks in flight.

Messier 11 is one of the richest and most compact open clusters currently known. By investigating the brightest, hottest main sequence stars in the cluster, astronomers estimate that it formed roughly 220 million years ago. Open clusters tend to contain fewer and younger stars than their more compact globular cousins, and Messier 11 is no exception: at its center lie many blue stars, the hottest and youngest of the cluster’s few thousand stellar residents.


The lifespans of open clusters are also relatively short compared to those of globular ones; stars in open clusters are spread farther apart and are thus not as strongly bound to each other by gravity, causing them to be more easily and quickly drawn away by stronger gravitational forces. As a result, Messier 11 is likely to disperse in a few million years as its members are ejected one by one, pulled away by other celestial objects in the vicinity.


Messier 11 is featured in Hubble’s Messier catalog, which includes some of the most fascinating objects that can be observed from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere. 

This article has been republished from materials provided by NASA. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Advertisement