20 900 light years away, the constellation “Ophiuchus”. Credit: ESA/NASA.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured the above picture of ancient stars that have been shining away for many billions of years.

The star Messier 107 can be found in the constellation of Ophiuchus (The Serpent Bearer) and is located about 20,000 light-years from our solar system. It is among the oldest stars in the Milky Way.

French astronomer, Pierre Méchain was the first to note the object in 1782 and the British astronomer William Herschel documented it independently a year later. A Canadian astronomer, Helen Sawyer Hogg, added Messier 107 to Charles Messier’s famous astronomical catalog in 1947.

This picture was obtained with the Wide Field Camera of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

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