A
giant star cluster seen in the Cassiopeia constellation contains over 15,000
stars.
NGC
7789 emerged 1.5 billion years ago as a gas cloud that served as an
interstellar birthing ground. The cluster entered human knowledge more recently
in 1782, when Astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered it while working with her
brother, William Herschel, on a Deep Sky survey.
The
open cluster currently lies near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, about 8,000
light-years away. All the stars in the cluster appear to have been born around
the same time, but the more massive siblings have more rapidly consumed their
hydrogen fuel in their cores.
— CHFT, SEDS, NASA and SPACE.com Staff
Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope/Coelum
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