Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Centaurus (Cen)  ·  Contains:  NGC 5139  ·  Omega Centauri
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Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80), Bruce Rohrlach
Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80)
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Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80)

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Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80), Bruce Rohrlach
Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80)
Powered byPixInsight

Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80)

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Description

Omega Centauri - the disrupted core segment of a dwarf galaxy. With an estimated 10 million stars (suns) crowded into a volume 230 light years across, the night sky from any one of the 100 million or so planets within the cluster would be intensely bright. Being so tightly bound by gravity, globular clusters are very old features, with Omega Centauri being around 11.5 billion years old. In contrast open clusters whose stars are more weakly bound by gravity tend to disperse within just a few billion years.

With a suspected black hole at its centre (typical of most galaxies in general), this supports its origin as an imposter to the Milky Way, a captured satellite galaxy that was dismembered by an encounter with the gravitational forces of the Milky Way, leaving its remnant core now forever captured in the region of Centaurus.

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Omega Centauri - NGC 5139 (Caldwell 80), Bruce Rohrlach