The European Space Agency and NASA released a new Hubble Space Telescope image of the globular cluster Messier 30 (M30) on Thursday, Nov. 5, as ESA/Hubble’s Picture of the Month. The cluster lies about 27,500 light-years away in the constellation Capricornus, ESA/Hubble said.
Related: Hubble Finds 37 Dwarf Galaxies Kept Only About 11% of the Oxygen Their Stars Made.
What the image shows
The image combines data from three Hubble observing programs and spans ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared light, NASA said. Each wavelength helps astronomers understand how the cluster’s stars formed and evolved, according to NASA’s Hubble Messier catalog.
The first program (No. 10775, principal investigator Sarajedini) surveyed dozens of Milky Way globular clusters in red and near-infrared light, ESA/Hubble said. It revealed stars down to about 20% of the Sun’s mass.
A second program (No. 13297, principal investigator Piotto) used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 with three filters for bluer light, ESA/Hubble said. Its data supported studies of blue straggler stars and of multiple star populations within one cluster.
The latest program (No. 16298, principal investigator Libralato) measured how the cluster’s stars moved over 15 years, ESA/Hubble said. The agency said that work was possible only because of Hubble’s longevity.
A cluster that may not have formed here
Researchers have found that M30 and many other globular clusters orbit in the direction opposite to the Milky Way’s spin, ESA/Hubble said. This may mean those clusters formed elsewhere and were captured by the Milky Way in the distant past, the agency said.
Globular clusters are roughly spherical groups of tens of thousands to millions of stars, ESA/Hubble said. Astronomers estimate their ages at 11.5 billion to 13.5 billion years, according to the agency. The Milky Way has at least 150 of them, the nearest about 6,000 light-years away.
Blue stragglers
Observations with Hubble’s retired Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 identified two types of blue straggler stars in M30, NASA said. One type forms in near head-on collisions between two stars. The other forms in binary systems where one star pulls hydrogen from its companion, according to NASA.
Seeing it yourself
Charles Messier discovered M30, also called NGC 7099, in 1764, NASA said. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 7.7 and can be seen through binoculars, according to NASA. It is best observed in October, the agency said.
More coverage is in Science.
Sources
- ESA/Hubble: Lessons from a stellar instructor (Picture of the Month, Nov. 5, 2026)
- NASA: M30’s Sparkling Stars
- NASA: Hubble Messier Catalog, Messier 30
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