BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Serpens- a Tour of the Celestial Snake *new*

Snakes were revered in ancient Greece. They represented wisdom, healing and rebirth. The constellation Serpens was included in a star catalog in the 2nd century, but it's much older than that. Seen through telescopes, it's rich in deep sky objects. Here's a tour of some of the highlights.

Serpens - a Tour of the Celestial Snake

Hubble image of globular cluster Messier 5. It's 25,000 light years away in Serpens and most of its 100,000 stars are over 12 billion years old. Their mutual gravity pulled them together into a spherical shape.

Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Here's a galaxy in Serpens that's not mentioned in the article. It's PGC 54493, a barred spiral galaxy some 490 million light years away. Its diameter is estimated at 140,000 light years across, so bigger than our Milky Way.

Here is a graphical representation of PSR J1719-1438 and its planet. The planet is probably a former white dwarf. A pulsar is the remnant core of massive planet following a supernova explosion.