Messier 12 – The Gumball Cluster

From our vantage, Messier 12 (M12) is not far from M10. It’s located about 23,000 light years away in the Ophiuchus constellation.

Like its brother M10, M12 contains a large number of binary stars (two stars in mutual orbit around each other). It also contains a lower proportion of smaller stars than scientists expect—perhaps because the larger ones (as many as a million) were stripped away as it passed through dense regions of our galaxy. Although it contains twice as many stars, the core is also significantly less dense than its neighbor M10.

Globular clusters are ancient. They are many billions of years old—usually 10 to 13 billion years old—almost as old as the universe itself. The stars they contain 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.

M12’s age has been estimated at an astonishing 13.8 billion years (plus or minus 1.1 billion years), which is very close to the age of the universe!

M12

Distance: 23,000 light years

Number of stars: 200,000

Diameter: 75 light years

Age: 13.8 billion years