Terzan 1, Take 2: Hubble Captures a Dazzling Globular Cluster

By ESA/Hubble October 9, 2022 Hubble Space Telescope picture of Terzan 1, a globular cluster that lies about 22,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Cohen Terzan 1 is a globular cluster situated around 22,000 light-years far from Earth in the constellation Scorpius. It is among 11 globular clusters that were found by the Turkish-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan in between 1966 and1971 This is a period when he was operating in France, based mainly at Lyon Observatory. Rather confusingly, the 11 Terzan globular clusters are numbered from Terzan 1 to Terzan12 This is because of an error Terzan made in 1971, when he uncovered Terzan 5– a cluster he had actually currently found and reported back in 1968– and called it Terzan11 He released its discovery together with those of Terzan 9, 10, and12 He rapidly recognized his mistake, and tried to have Terzan 12 relabelled as Terzan11 He did not make it clear that Terzan 5 and Terzan 11 were one and the exact same, although another astronomer, Ivan Robert King, did release a note to attempt and clear up the confusion. Nowadays, the majority of documents acknowledge the initial Terzan 5 and Terzan 12, and accept the curiosity that there is no Terzan11 Over the previous couple of years, there have actually been circumstances of confusion in the clinical literature. Hubble Space Telescope picture of Terzan 1 caught by the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA & ESA, Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (Geckzilla) Terzan 1 is not a brand-new target for Hubble– a picture of the cluster was launched back in 2015 (see image above), taken by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). That instrument was changed by the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) throughout the 2009 Hubble servicing objective. WFC3 has both exceptional fixing power and a larger field of vision than WFPC2, and the enhancement is apparent in this wonderfully in-depth image.
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