梅西耶2
(原标题: Messier 2)
2024-12-19
浏览次数: 15
在蟹状星云之后，这个巨大的星团是18世纪天文学家查尔斯·梅西耶著名的非彗星列表中的第二个条目。M2是目前已知在我们银河系的光晕中漫游的最大的球状星团之一。尽管梅西耶最初将其描述为一个没有恒星的星云，但这张令人惊叹的哈勃图像显示了星团中心40光年处的恒星。它的恒星数量接近15万，集中在总直径约175光年的范围内。距离宝瓶座约55000光年，这个银河系的古老居民，也被称为NGC 7089，已有130亿年的历史。一个延伸的恒星碎片流，过去的引力潮汐破坏的标志，最近被发现与梅西耶2有关。
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After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th century astronomer Charles Messier's famous list of things that are not comets. M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster's central 40 light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky Way, also known as NGC 7089, is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption, was recently found to be associated with Messier 2.