10 January 2013 When you’re posing in front of a tourist
attraction on holiday, sometimes people walk in front of the
camera and ruin the picture. Astronomers experienced the same
thing, only this time they photographed a dwarf galaxy, and a
globular cluster blocked the view. But unlike annoying tourists,
globular clusters are actually very interesting. A globular
cluster is a collection of old stars that orbits a galaxy. It
contains many strange space phenomena, such as vampire stars
that suck matter from neighbouring stars. Or tiny stars that
spin extremely fast: in just a few seconds they spin a thousand
times around themselves! This particular globular cluster is
orbiting the Milky Way — our home galaxy. Although it is far
away, it still appears as big as the Moon in the night sky. A
ray of light would take 120 years to go from one side of the
cluster to the other. Light travels faster than anything in the
world, so you could say that this cluster is enormous! It is one
of the largest and brightest globul