Friday, May 17, 2019

Sparkle!

The object listed as M5, a nebula, in Charles Messier's catalog of stellar phenomena, was actually a globular cluster -- a very old, tightly packed clump of stars so close together that Messier's telescopes couldn't see the individual members.

You sort of wish that Messier had been able to see the different stars in M5, though, because he was bound to come up with a better name for such a magnificent sight than the clumsy (and ugly) "globular cluster."


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