Globular Star Clusters

A globular cluster is a spherical collection of many tens of thousands of stars that are tightly bound (tied) together by gravity.

The stars are all orbiting around the middle of the cluster, and often remind people of bees swarming around their hive.

They contain many more stars and are much older than open clusters, and considered the pensioners of the Universe.

Globular clusters are found in a large sphere around spiral galaxies, but are located away from the spiral arms of the galaxies they surround, and in the outer reaches of large elliptical galaxies.

Our own galaxy, the Milky Way is known to have around 150 globular clusters.