Stars Sparkle Like Diamonds

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Brilliant stars shine like dusty diamonds in the tail of a cosmic scorpion in a dazzling new image and video captured by a telescope in Chile.

The new photo, taken by astronomers with the European Southern Observatory in Chile's Atacama Desert, shows the stars of Messier 7 (M7), a star cluster so bright that it can be seen with the naked eye. The cluster is about 800 light-years away in the tail of the constellation Scorpius (The Scorpion), and is one of the prominent ones in Earth's sky, ESO scientists said. The researchers used the ESO telescope observations to create a stunning video tour of the M7 star cluster.

 

The new ESO picture of M7 (also called NGC 6475) was snapped with the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.

 

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