Hubble Captures Swarm Of Star Clusters Orbiting Distant Lenticular Galaxy NGC 5308
The NGC 5308 is a galaxy that lies just under 100 light-years from Earth in the Ursa Major constellation. On Friday, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) released an edge-on image of this lenticular galaxy, with a host of star clusters encircling it “like bees buzzing around a hive.”
Lenticular galaxies have a central bulge but no spiral arms, and are sometimes referred to as “armless spiral galaxies.” These galaxies are often orbited by gravitationally bound collections of thousands of older stars, called globular clusters.