Hubble Space Telescope captures the globular cluster NGC 1651, a densely packed sphere of stars, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 162,000 light-years away.
NGC 1651 almost fills the entire frame of the image, showcasing its vast size within a diameter of about 120 light-years.
Despite the immense distances, NGC 1651 appears large in the Hubble's view, comparable to distant galaxies that span millions of light-years.
Unlike cameras on Earth, Hubble doesn’t zoom. It has a fixed field of view, capturing celestial objects as they appear from its vantage point in space.
The data for NGC 1651 was collected using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), which has a field of view about one twelfth the diameter of the Moon as seen from Earth.
Objects of vastly different sizes, from globular clusters to galaxies, can fill Hubble’s frame due to their varying distances from Earth.
A distant spiral galaxy, much larger than NGC 1651 but appearing minuscule, is also captured in the image to the left of the cluster.
Image processors stitch multiple observations together, creating mosaics that reveal the grandeur of large astronomical objects.
The Hubble Space Telescope’s observations, like those of NGC 1651, provide a window into the complex and fascinating structures of our universe.
The image of NGC 1651 illustrates the vastness and beauty of the universe, reminding us of the incredible scale of cosmic phenomena.