Star clusters · ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week
Globular Star Cluster M4
September 3, 2012 · ESA/Hubble · M 4 , Messier 4 , NGC 6121 · Scorpius
Zoom to full resolution See where it is in the 3D sky Original on ESA/Hubble ↗
A Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular star cluster, Messier 4. The cluster is a dense collection of several hundred thousand stars. Astronomers suspect that an intermediate-mass black hole, weighing as much as 800 times the mass of our Sun, is lurking, unseen, at its core.
Image description
Image description : Thousands of bright points of light on a black background fill the field of view. They appear somewhat more concentrated near the centre of the image. They have a variety of colours, with the most prominent stars appearing blue or yellow-orange. The brighter stars also display four diffraction spikes.
