Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Hercules (Her)  ·  Contains:  Hercules Globular Cluster  ·  IC 4617  ·  M 13  ·  NGC 6205  ·  NGC 6207
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M13 Great Hercules Cluster, autonm
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M13 Great Hercules Cluster

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M13 Great Hercules Cluster, autonm
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M13 Great Hercules Cluster

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Description

Newcastle, UK

Messier 13 Great Hercules Cluster*

About 145 light-years in diameter, M13 is composed of several hundred thousand stars. M13 is 22,200–25,000 light-years away from Earth.

Compared to the stars in the neighbourhood of the Sun, the stars of the M13 population are more than a hundred times more densely packed. They are so close together that they sometimes collide and produce new stars. The newly formed, young stars, so-called "blue stragglers", are particularly interesting to astronomers.

The 1974 Arecibo message, which contained encoded information about the human race, DNA, atomic numbers, Earth's position and other information, was beamed from the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope towards M13 as an experiment in contacting potential extraterrestrial civilizations in the cluster. The cluster will move through space during the transit time; opinions differ as to whether or not the cluster will be in a position to receive the message by the time that it arrives.


*A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, giving them their spherical shapes and high concentrations of stars toward their centers. Their name is derived from Latin globulus—a small sphere. Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as globulars.

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M13 Great Hercules Cluster, autonm