‘Glistening’ cluster teeming with stars captured by Hubble telescope

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Hubble Space Telescope used to watch black hole eat a star

Astronomers used Hubble Space Telescope's ultraviolet capabilities to investigate the death of a recently devoured star nearly 300 million light-years away. These events are known as "tidal disruptions."

It almost takes your breath away. 

NASA and the European Space Agency’s Hubble Space Telescope captured a truly stunning image of a cluster of stars "glistening" in the sky some eight light years away from Earth. 

The photograph, released by NASA, shows the countless stars – of all sizes – illuminating in space. 

The teeming stars of the globular cluster NGC 6544 glisten in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This cluster of tightly bound stars lies more than 8,000 light-years away from Earth and is, like all globular clusters, a densely populated region of tens of thousands of stars.

( ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Lewin, F. R. Ferraro / NASA)

The globular cluster, known to scientists as NGC 6544, is made up of tens of thousands of stars, according to NASA.

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Globular clusters are tightly packed and typically symmetrical collections of stars, according to EarthSky.org. The stars have somewhat of a focal point and mostly orbit in the extended stellar halos surrounding spiral galaxies. 

Globular clusters contain some of the oldest stars in the galaxy. Some of these ancient stars are estimated to be between 11 and 13 billion years old, according to EarthSky. 

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The clusters typically contain hundreds of thousands of stars, except for Omega Centauri, which astronomers have determined is home to millions of stars. 

The Milky Way galaxy alone contains over 150 globular clusters, while our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, has well over 300. 

This story was reported from Los Angeles.