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Omega Centauri

The brightest and biggest globular cluster is visible to the naked eye as a blurred spot. At least on the southern hemisphere. It contains many millions of stars, each one with less mass than the Sun, but no dust and nebulae. Omega Centauri, which took 2 billion years to form, has the size of a dwarf galaxy. Nevertheless it belongs to the halo of the Milky Way.

Constellation: Centaurus
Age: 12 billion years
Distance: 17 000 light-years
Spectral class: F5
Visual magnitude: 3.68
Complete mass: 4 million * Sun
Radial velocity: 238 km/sec

Back: List of Special Stars part 2 		    Omega Centauri
What you see are mostly red giants, the biggest and most developed stars in the globular cluster. Although they are a minority there.
Photo: P. Seitzer (University of Michigan)
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