M3 is a dense globular cluster in Canes Venatici containing roughly 500,000 ancient stars bound together by gravity.
What It Is
A dense, spherical swarm of roughly 500,000 stars, all bound together by gravity. The stars are tightly packed toward the center and become more spread out toward the edges.
History
M3 was the first original discovery by Messier, not just something he cataloged from others.
Science Notes
- Contains hundreds of variable stars, more than most globular clusters.
- Home to blue stragglers, stars that appear younger than the rest, likely formed from stellar collisions or mergers.
- Stars near the core are so crowded that the night sky there would be dramatically brighter than ours.
- age
- ~10-12 billion years
- distance
- ~34,000 light-years (~200 quadrillion miles)
- width
- ~150-180 light-years (~880-1,060 trillion miles)
