Messier 62

Messier 62

Image credit:  NASA, ESA, STScI, and S. Anderson (University of Washington) and J. Chaname (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile)

 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. 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.

This Hubble observation was taken in ultraviolet and visible light using the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3. Most of the globular cluster is featured in this observation, with the core focused toward the top right. Hubble made these observations to help astronomers study the characteristics of globular clusters, measure the mass of M62’s black hole, and help determine the formation and evolution of cluster binaries.

Charles Messier discovered M62 in 1771. The globular cluster is almost 12 billion years old. M62 has a magnitude of 6.6 and is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, approximately 22,200 light-years away from Earth. Best observed in July, the cluster is easily found southeast of the bright star Antares and can be seen as a hazy patch with binoculars. Small telescopes reveal a comet-like shape, while telescopes 8 inches or larger will resolve more stars.

Image credit:Image courtesy of Stellarium

Previous Object: Messier 61/\ Next object: Messier 63

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