Gaia space telescope detects 500 thousand new stars in the Omega Centauri cluster

The European Space Agency has released stunning data collected by the Gaia telescope in the Omega Centauri cluster, writes Gizmodo.

Gaia has been in space since December 2013 and is located in a region called L2. This is the same region that the James Webb Space Telescope calls home.

The data obtained relates to a region 17 thousand light-years from Earth. The Gaia telescope has discovered half a million new stars, 380 potential gravitational lenses, and determined the orbits of more than 156 thousand asteroids.

“With the new data we can study the cluster’s structure, how the constituent stars are distributed, how they’re moving, and more, creating a complete large-scale map of Omega Centauri,” says in an ESA release.

Observations of clusters such as Omega Centauri can provide a variety of useful information, including details about how stars age and how galaxies evolve.

Earlier, the James Webb telescope took unique images of the Ring Nebula, which is located at a distance of about 2200 light-years from Earth and surrounds a dying star.