M53 - Globular Cluster
Perhaps not one of the most breathtaking objects in the sky, this Globular Cluster, M53, is interesting. It is made up of about 500k stars gravitationally bound into a sphere shape. In the center the stars are as close as 1 light year apart and contains some of the oldest stars in our galaxy.
At 63,000 light years away from us, M53 sits near the half way point if we were to take a trip to the center of the Milky Way. That distance is shrinking however as the cluster of stars flies towards our planet at a blistering speed of… 70 km/s which on the galactic scale isn’t very fast.
What makes Globular clusters so interesting is that they are made up of a lot of very old stars with few heavy metals. In stellar terms, heavy metals are anything other than hydrogen and helium. A star can’t contain heavy metals unless it changes phases to begin producing them itself or is made from dust released by other stars that have already begun creating them, or consumed another older star.
See more about M53 in my Messier Objects section: https://www.jasonoflaherty.com/messier-objects/m53
