"Giant World" in the Constellation of Heaven

(NLDO) - The James Webb super telescope has provided the clearest view ever of a region of space filled with objects 2,000 times larger than the Sun.

In an image recently released by the European Space Agency (ESA), a super cluster of stars 12,000 light years from Earth appears as a magical world of extremely large, extremely bright cosmic monsters.

This super cluster, named Westerlund 1, lies in the constellation of Asterism.

The Westerlund 1 supercluster is a world of supergiant stars in the constellation of Zeus - Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA

Westerlund 1 has been known before, but now its spectacularity is revealed through the "magic eye" of the world's youngest and most powerful telescope, James Webb.

The telescope is being jointly operated by NASA, ESA and CSA (the US, European and Canadian space agencies).

According to the ESA, Westerlund 1 is a "galactic factory of epic proportions."

It can be seen quite clearly from Earth's Southern Hemisphere, appearing just below the tail of the constellation Scorpio and near the core of our Milky Way galaxy.

It is one of the largest known star clusters and compared to worlds like our own Solar System, the stars inside Westerlund 1 are giants.

Many of the "superstars" in this cluster are up to 2,000 times more massive than our Sun, bringing the total mass of the cluster to 50,000 to 100,000 times that of the Sun.

Meanwhile, other superclusters typically weigh only 10,000 times the mass of the Sun.

If a star in Westerlund 1 were to replace the Sun, it would extend as far as the orbit of Saturn and be 1 million times brighter than the Sun.

And if the Earth orbited a star in this cluster, we would have a night sky filled with hundreds of bright objects the size of a full moon rising at the same time.

However, superstars often have short lives.

Astronomers believe that over the next 40 million years, more than 1,500 supernovae — stars that die and explode — will illuminate Westerlund 1.

Currently, this star cluster is about 3.5 million to 5 million years old.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/anh-doc-tu-esa-the-gioi-nguoi-khong-lo-giua-chom-sao-thien-dan-196241023111835202.htm