After the Crab Nebula, this giant star cluster is the second entry in 18th
century astronomer Charles Messier’s famous list of things that are not comets.
M2 is one of the largest globular star clusters now known to roam the halo of
our Milky Way galaxy. Though Messier originally described it as a nebula
without stars, this stunning Hubble image resolves stars across the cluster’s central 40
light-years. Its population of stars numbers close to 150,000, concentrated
within a total diameter of around 175 light-years. About 55,000 light-years
distant toward the constellation Aquarius, this ancient denizen of the Milky
Way, also known as NGC 7089, is 13 billion years old. An extended stellar debris stream, a signature of past gravitational tidal disruption,
was recently found to be associated with Messier 2.
Image & info via APOD
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.
Source: Messier 2 – Scents of
Science
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