This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before humankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed [ http://www.dinosaur…], and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a young Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Of the 200 [ http://www.faqs.org…] or so globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] that survive today, M3 [ http://www.seds.org…] is one of the largest and brightest, easily visible in the Northern hemisphere with binoculars. M3 [ http://www.astroima…] contains about half a million stars, most of which are old and red. Light takes about 35,000 years to reach us from M3 [ http://en.wikipedia…], which spans about 150 light years [ http://chandra.harv…]. The above picture [ http://www.noao.edu…] is a composite of blue and red images.
Explanation
This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before humankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed [ http://www.dinosaur…], and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a young Milky Way Galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Of the 200 [ http://www.faqs.org…] or so globular clusters [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] that survive today, M3 [ http://www.seds.org…] is one of the largest and brightest, easily visible in the Northern hemisphere with binoculars. M3 [ http://www.astroima…] contains about half a million stars, most of which are old and red. Light takes about 35,000 years to reach us from M3 [ http://en.wikipedia…], which spans about 150 light years [ http://chandra.harv…]. The above picture [ http://www.noao.edu…] is a composite of blue and red images.
