NGC 1866 globular star cluster, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). NGC 1866 is a young globular star cluster found at the very edges of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy located near to the Milky Way. NGC 1866 is close enough for individual stars to be studied. Different populations, or generations, of stars are thought to coexist within the cluster. Once the first generation of stars formed, it is thought that the cluster encountered a giant gas cloud that sparked a new wave of star formation, giving rise to a second, younger, generation of stars that are more blue in colour. Star clusters are common structures throughout the Universe, each made up of hundreds of thousands of stars all bound together by gravity. |