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EMBARGOED UNTIL: 9:00 a.m. (EDT) September 16, 1999

PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC99-30

HUBBLE SPIES GIANT STAR CLUSTERS NEAR GALACTIC CENTER

Penetrating 25,000 light-years of obscuring dust and myriad stars,
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided the clearest view yet of a
pair of the largest young clusters of stars inside our Milky Way galaxy,
located less than 100 light-years from the very center of the Galaxy.
Having the equivalent mass greater than 10,000 stars like our sun, the
monster clusters are ten times larger than typical young star clusters
scattered throughout our Milky Way. Both clusters are destined to be
ripped apart in just a few million years by gravitational tidal forces
in the Galaxy’s core. But in the brief time they are around, they shine
more brightly than any other star cluster in the Galaxy.

Arches cluster (left):
The more compact Arches cluster is so dense, over 100,000 of its stars
would fill a spherical region in space whose radius is the distance
between the Sun and its nearest neighbor, the star Alpha Centauri, 4.3
light-years away. At least 150 of its stars are among the brightest ever
seen in the Galaxy.

Quintuplet cluster (right):
This 4-million-year-old cluster is more dispersed than the Arches
cluster. It has stars on the verge of blowing up as supernovae. It is
the home of the brightest star seen in the Galaxy, called the Pistol
star.

Both pictures were taken in infrared light by Hubble's NICMOS camera in
September 1997. The false colors correspond to infrared wavelengths. The
galactic center stars are white, the red stars are enshrouded in dust or
behind dust, and the blue stars are foreground stars between us and the
Milky Way's center.

The clusters are hidden from direct view behind black dust clouds in the
constellation Sagittarius. If the clusters could be seen from Earth they
would appear to the naked eye as a pair of third magnitude "stars," 1/6th
of a full moon's diameter apart.

Credit: Don Figer (Space Telescope Science Institute) and NASA