Messier 80 (M80)

Lying 32,600 light years away, M80 hosts more than 200,000 stars in an area 96 light years in diameter. At an age of around 12.54 billion years, M80 is one of the densest known globular clusters and contains twice as many blue straggler stars as most other globular clusters that scientists have studied. Blue stragglers are stars that appear brighter and bluer than we would expect given the cluster’s age. Scientists are not sure what causes this, but one prominent theory suggests they are the result of star collisions in a densely packed cluster or they form when one star siphons mass from another star.

Globular clusters are ancient collections of stars that are gravitationally bound together in a spheroidal shape. Some are almost as old as the universe itself. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands of stars to millions of stars. The stars they house tend to be very old as well, because star formation inside the cluster has largely ceased. The formation of globular clusters is not well understood. Current research leans toward the idea that they formed from very dense molecular clouds in the early universe. Some larger globular clusters may once have been dwarf galaxies whose larger star populations were stripped away from the core by larger galaxies.

M80 Facts

Distance: 32,600 light years

Number of stars: 200,000

Diameter: 96 light years

Age: 12.54 billion years