This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before mankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed, and even before our Earth existed, ancient globs of stars condensed and orbited a young Milky Way Galaxy. Of the 250 or so globular clusters that survive today, M3 is one of the largest and brightest, easily visible in the Northern hemisphere with binoculars. M3 contains about half a million stars, most of which are old and red. The existence of young blue stars in M3 once posed a mystery, but these blue stragglers are now thought to form via stellar interactions.
Ryan's Summary
I took this image with the 24" telescope at the University of Colorado's Sommers-Bausch Observatory. It was taken on an f/3.4 CCD imaging system on a particularly nice night, for Boulder.
(note to meta-editors: this image did NOT come from NASA as previously stated. See above.)
El lloc web de la NASA disposa d'un gran nombre d'imatges de l'Agència Espacial Russa, o soviètica, i d'altres agències no nord-americanes. Aquestes imatges no són necessàriament en el domini públic.
Messier Objects: M3<br> taken by rbruels <i>From NASA's [http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ APOD] site:</i> This huge ball of stars predates our Sun. Long before mankind evolved, before dinosaurs roamed, and even before our Earth existed
Aquest fitxer conté informació addicional, probablement afegida per la càmera digital o l'escàner utilitzat per a crear-lo o digitalitzar-lo. Si s'ha modificat posteriorment, alguns detalls poden no reflectir les dades reals del fitxer modificat.