梅西耶 2 號
Messier 2

發表日期:2024-12-19
在蟹狀星雲之後,這個巨大的星團是 18 世紀天文學家查爾斯-梅西耶(Charles Messier)著名的非彗星列表中的第二個條目。M 2 是目前已知在銀河系光環中游蕩的最大球狀星團之一。雖然梅西耶最初將它描述為一個沒有恆星的星雲,但這張令人驚歎的哈勃影像卻能分辨出星團中心 40 光年範圍內的恆星。它的恆星數量接近 15 萬顆,集中在總直徑約 175 光年的範圍內。這個古老的銀河系居民,也被稱為 NGC 7089 ,距寶瓶座約 55000 光年,已有 130 億年的歷史。最近,人們發現Messier 2 上有一個延伸的恆星碎片流,這是過去引力潮汐破壞的標誌。
原文: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.
※ 本文由萌芽機器人自動轉貼自每日一天文圖(Astronomy Picture of the Day,APOD),原文為英文,正體中文是透過 DeepL 翻譯及 OpenCC 進行自動處理,內容僅供參考,若有任何錯誤之處還請見諒!
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