The Super Cluster (Westerlund 1)

A metropolis of giants. Westerlund 1 is a 'super star cluster' located 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Ara. It is one of the most massive young clusters in the Milky Way, serving as a laboratory for extreme stellar physics.

The image reveals a dense concentration of bright stars, each marked by the six-pointed diffraction spikes of the telescope. These are evolved, massive stars—Wolf-Rayet stars, yellow hypergiants, and OB supergiants—that are living fast and dying young. Billowing patches of red gas surround the cluster, illuminated by the intense starlight. Astronomers believe this open cluster will eventually evolve into a globular cluster, a tightly packed sphere of stars. It is a glimpse into the 'super star cluster' era of the Milky Way's past.

Scientific provenance

Editions

• Fine Art — museum-grade pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag® Metallic. Numbered edition of 50 per size, with a Numbered Certificate of Authenticity.
• Poster — pigment print on archival photo paper. Open edition.
• Framed or unframed — either edition can be framed in a slim black frame with shatter-resistant acrylic glazing, ready to hang (50 × 50 and 50 × 70 cm). Framed works ship free within the EU; unframed prints ship rolled in a protective tube.

Printed to order in our Vilnius studio on an Epson SureColor P20500 with UltraChrome PRO12 pigment inks, and dispatched within 5–7 business days. Each size is composed for its own proportions: we crop, we never stretch, and we never add or generate image content.

Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), M. G. Guarcello (INAF-OAPA) and the EWOCS team. Licensed under CC BY 4.0; cropped and colour-managed for print. UniverseMuseum is an independent studio and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI or the Rubin Observatory.