Red or blue pill? 🔴 🔵 While these two images may look dazzlingly different, they are actually pictures of the same cosmic object: NGC 1850. Although the same Hubble instrument took both images, different filters with different assigned colours were used to study particular wavelengths of light emanating from these objects. The image with red nebulosity covers a much broader range from the near-ultraviolet to the beginnings of the infrared spectrum, whereas the image with blue nebulosity includes some near-infrared light along with visible light (also a different “pointing” at the same object). Ultraviolet observations are ideal for detecting the light from the hottest and youngest stars, as seen in this luminous, starry view. This 100 million-year-old globular cluster is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and a birthplace for billions of stars. The cluster is approximately 160,000 light-years away in the constellation Dorado. Typical of globular clusters, it is a spherical collection of densely packed stars held together by mutual gravitational attraction. Unlike most globular clusters, however, the stars of NGC 1850 are relatively young. In 2021, scientists detected the presence of a black hole in NGC 1850. They have also detected many brighter blue stars that burn hotter and die younger than red stars. Also present are around 200 red giants, stars that have run out of hydrogen in their centers and are fusing hydrogen further from their core, causing the outer layers to expand, cool, and glow red. Surrounding the cluster is a pattern of nebulosity, diffuse dust and gas theorized to come from supernova blasts (the blue veil-like structures on the second image and the red ones on the first image). 📸 @NASA, @europeanspaceagency and N. Bastian (Donostia International Physics Center); @creativecommons CC BY 4.0 Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/@catholicuniversity) 📸 NASA, ESA and P. Goudfrooij (@space_telescopes); CC BY 4.0 Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America) #Hubble #GlobularCluster #NGC1850 #LargeMagellanicCloud