03/07/2026
The Chandelier Cluster Has Been Shining for More Than 10 Billion Years
Captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, this stunning view shows NGC 6723, also known as the Chandelier Cluster—a globular cluster located about 27,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius.
This ancient cluster contains hundreds of thousands of stars packed tightly together by gravity. Many of its stars are more than 10 billion years old, making them some of the oldest known members of our Milky Way galaxy.
For many years, astronomers believed that all the stars in globular clusters formed at the same time. However, Hubble observations have revealed a more complex story. In NGC 6723, researchers found evidence of two closely spaced periods of star formation, with the second occurring about 634 million years after the first.
These discoveries are helping scientists better understand how globular clusters formed during the early history of our galaxy and how they evolved over billions of years.
NGC 6723 is more than just a beautiful collection of stars—it's a living record of the Milky Way's earliest history, still sparkling more than 10 billion years after it first formed.
