Category Archives: omega centauri

Cassini Catches a Cluster

Omega Centauri as Ring Backdrop

Well, this is kind of cool. The Cassini Mission out at Saturn happened to be studying the planet’s F ring and during the course of the observations caught view of the globular cluster Omega Centauri as it passed through the camera’s field of view.

The movie above is actually 13 images taken three minutes apart and then surgically joined together by the Cassini team to make the animation.  It clearly shows the cluster moving through the background.

Omega Centauri is really a spectacular naked-eye sight. It’s visible from throughout the southern hemisphere and lucky folks in more southerly parts of the northern hemisphere closer to the equator have a good vantage point for it, too. It has several millions stars packed into an area less than 90 light-years across.

The cluster lies about 15,800 light-years away from us, and is the largest of the globular clusters that are associated with the Milky Way Galaxy.  Omega Centauri may have played an interesting role in the evolution of our galaxy. Some astronomers suspect that it could have been part of a dwarf galaxy that was consumed by the Milky Way billions of years ago.  If this is true, then the cluster is what’s left of that galaxy’s core.  It’s an intriguing idea and one that astronomers are still researching.

On an unrelated note, if you’re a fan of the Carnival of Space, check out this week’s Carnival, written by Emily Lakdawalla.  Great stuff in there, including one of my own entries.