Hubble and Webb’s views of NGC 6440

The images in this video showcase the views from Hubble (left) and Webb (right) of the globular cluster NGC 6440. This object resides roughly 28 000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. NGC 6440 was first discovered by William Herschel in May of 1786.

Globular clusters like NGC 6440 are roughly spherical, tightly packed, collections of old stars bound together by gravity. They can be found throughout galaxies, but often live on the outskirts. They hold hundreds of thousands to millions of stars that are on average about one light-year apart, but they can be as close together as the size of our Solar System.