Hubble sees a glittering globular cluster embedded inside our Milky Way

This composite image shows the location of the globular star cluster Terzan 12 as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.

Top: A view of a section of our Milky Way in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Dense clouds of dust are etched across a whitish background of stars. The object at upper right is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.

Bottom left: Photo of a small portion of the Milky Way which is only one-degree across – twice the angular diameter of the full moon. The globular cluster is in the image centre.

Bottom Right: A new Hubble Space Telescope image of the dense cluster Terzan 12. Intervening dust scatters starlight to create multiple reddish hues. The brightest red stars in the photo are bloated, ageing giants, many times larger than our Sun. They lie between Earth and the cluster. Only a few may actually be members of the cluster. The very brightest hot, blue stars are also along the line of sight and not inside the cluster, which only contains ageing stars. The cluster is about 15,000 light-years from Earth.

[Image description: At the top of this mosaic image is a diagonal section of our Milky Way as seen in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. A smaller portion of the Milky Way is at lower left. It is filled with stars and also a mottled pattern of black clouds of dust. The embedded globular star cluster Terzan 12 is in the middle of the image. At image right is a Hubble Space Telescope photo of the dense star-filled globular cluster. Intervening dust scatters starlight to create multiple reddish hues.]