AAO image reference AAT 10a. « Previous || Next »
Top left is NE. Image width is about 25 arc min
Image and text © 2001-2002, Anglo-Australian Observatory, photograph by David Malin.
Unlike the Sun, many stars are found in brilliant clusters such as NGC 3293 where they spend their lives. At birth, which should have been at much the same time for all the stars in NGC 3293, the most massive stars are hot and very luminous and therefore appear as the brightest blue stars. With time they deplete their supplies of nuclear fuel, hydrogen. This evolutionary process involves cooling, so that the stars become redder, and would ordinarily disappear from view, but they also swell to gigantic proportions and so remain visible. The bright orange star in NGC 3293 is the member of the cluster which has aged fastest. This cluster is in the constellation of Carina at a distance of about 8500 light years.
Young clusters such as NGC 3293 are born from dusty gas which is rapidly dispersed by the energy of the young stars. Hhowever, in this deep, wide field view traces of it remain as the red and blue nebulosities in the upper right (NW) corner.
Entry from NGC 2000.0 (R.W. Sinnott, Ed.) © Sky Publishing Corporation, 1988:
NGC 3293 C+N 10 35.8 -58 14 s Car 40. 4.7 Cl, B, Ri, pLRelated Image
AAT 10. An open cluster of stars, NGC 3293
For details of photographic exposure, search technical table by AAT reference number.