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The globular cluster M92 in Hercules is a well-recognized goal for beginner astronomers, a compact swarm of stars close to M13, one of many brightest globulars seen from the northern hemisphere. M92 can be one of many oldest identified globulars within the Milky Manner, made up of stars between 12 billion and 13 billion years previous.
Astronomers utilizing the James Webb House Telescope imaged M92 final summer season as a part of an ongoing examine of stellar evolution. The traditional cluster was additionally focused to assist calibrate Webb’s science devices utilizing a subject of comparatively close-packed, resolved stars.
“We … selected M92 as a result of it is extremely dense,” mentioned Rutgers College researcher Roger Cohen. “There are a number of stars packed collectively very intently. Taking a look at M92 permits us to check how Webb performs on this explicit regime, the place we have to make measurements of stars which can be very shut collectively.”
Whereas M92 has been extensively studied with the Hubble House Telescope and different ground- and space-based devices, Webb operates at infrared wavelengths and is ideally suited to learning cool, low-mass stars.
“We had been truly capable of attain right down to the bottom mass stars, stars lower than 0.1 instances the mass of the solar,” mentioned Cohen. “That is very near the boundary the place stars cease being stars. … These observations weren’t truly designed to push very exhausting on the bounds of the telescope. So it’s very encouraging to see that we had been nonetheless capable of detect such small, faint stars with out making an attempt actually, actually exhausting.”
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