💫 Star cluster
Messier 5
One of the oldest star clusters in our galaxy, more than 12 billion years old.
- Kind
- Globular cluster: old stars packed into a ball
- Distance
- 25,000 light-years away
- Stars
- Over 100,000
- Discovered
- 1702, by Gottfried Kirch
Did you know?
- Its stars formed more than 12 billion years ago, when the universe was young.
- It holds blue stars that look surprisingly young, probably made when crowded stars collided and merged.
- Through binoculars it looks like a small fuzzy patch of light.
Photographed or visited by
Hubble Space Telescope
Thirty-six years above the weather, and still working.
More NASA photos of Messier 5Straight from NASA’s image library, in the app
Explore more
All of deep space
The Sun
Our star, an ordinary one that keeps everything here alive.
Betelgeuse
A red supergiant in Orion that will one day explode.
Alpha Centauri
The closest star system to the Sun.
Eta Carinae
A pair of giant stars, one of them about 90 times heavier than the Sun.
Mira
A red giant star racing through space with a tail like a comet.
Zeta Ophiuchi
A runaway star, flung out when its partner exploded.