Friday, October 30, 2009

Pingie: HTTP:: Beautiful New Image of the Jewel Box Star Cluster Available

HTTP:: Beautiful New Image of the Jewel Box Star Cluster Available
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The Jewel Box star cluster, also known as NGC 4755 or the Kappa Crucis Cluster, is one of the finest open star clusters discovered thus far in the Universe. It lies in the southern-hemisphere constellation of Crux, and it's located some 6,400 light-years away from Earth. The formation is one of the most important discovered by astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who saw it during his trips to South Africa, between 1751 and 1752. Now, with the help of three of the world's most renowned telescopes, the Jewel Box gets a new picture, one of the most detailed to date. Famous English astronomer John Herschel gave it the name of Jewel Box in the 1830s. The cluster is just bright enough to be seen with the unaided eye during a clear night. One reason for its name is the contrast that is visible between its pale blue and orange stars, as seen through astronomical telescopes. These colors reminded Herschel of some exotic jewelry that he had seen at some point. Structures such as !
this one are a gold mine for astronomers, as all stars were formed from the same gas-and-dust cloud and have, therefore, about the same age and brightness. Kappa Crucis is about 16 million years old. Usually, clusters are formed from anywhere between a few and several thousand stars, all of them bound together by a loose ...
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http://news.softpedia.com/news/Beautiful-new-Image-of-the-Jewel-Box-Star-Cluster-Available-125588.shtml
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