The Hubble telescope is in better shape than ever, and the photo of NGC 6530 proves it

If anyone thought that with the advent of James Webb the old Hubble would have fallen into disuse, they were very wrong since the precious space telescope of the 90s continues to offer data and images that are not only useful for scientific research, but spectacular to view.

Hubble was developed to study light mainly in the ultraviolet and visible parts of the spectrum, i.e. from 0.1 to 0.8 microns, but it is also able to scan a very small part of the infrared, from 0.8 to 2, 5 microns. The region captured in the image is part of the scattered cluster NGC 6530. It is located at a distance of 4,350 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius and is part of the larger Lagoon nebula. First we look at it, then more details.

The decidedly smoky aspect of the image is due precisely to the nebula mentioned above, which is formed by a gigantic cloud of interstellar gas and dust. There are several thousand stars in NGC 6530, making it one of the largest open clusters. The open clusters typically feature hundreds or thousands of stars united by the same period of birth, which occur within a loosely bound agglomeration and which tend to move away and disperse in the galaxy over time. Globular clusters, on the other hand, maintain an approximately spherical shape for billions of years and may contain up to a million stars, with increasing density as one approaches its center. The Hubble Space Telescope has revolutionized the study of star clusters, as ground-based telescopes cannot distinguish individual stars within them.

Studying the age and brightness of stars in star clusters helps astronomers better understand the history and evolution of a galaxy, so Hubble was looking for a class of astronomical objects known as illuminated protoplanetary disks, which surround stars just born. Most of the known ones have been found in the Orion Nebula, making it difficult to understand how they form and evolve in other environments.

Now the James Webb Space Telescope’s improved infrared imaging capabilities should complement Hubble’s observations, as the newer telescope is better able to peer through the dust and gas surrounding newborn stars.