Sunny Priyan
M62, one of our galaxy’s most irregularly shaped globular clusters, is likely distorted by galactic tidal forces due to its proximity to the galactic center.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
M62 has an extremely dense core of 150,000 stars. In 2013, astronomers discovered a stellar-mass black hole in M62, one of the first to ever be found in a globular cluster.
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI
According to observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, M62 also contains a large number of X-ray binaries, which formed in close encounters between stars in the cluster.
Image Credit: Pixabay
French comet-hunter Charles Messier discovered M62 in 1771. The globular cluster is almost 12 billion years old.
Image Credit: Pixabay
M62 has a magnitude of 6.6 and is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, approximately 22,200 light-years away from Earth.
Image Credit: Pixabay
The cluster is located southeast of the bright star Antares and can be seen as a hazy patch of light with binoculars.
Image Credit: Pixabay