Fact Sheet
An Aging Parent
This star cluster, NGC 6397, is one of the oldest in the Milky Way galaxy. It contains several hundred thousand stars, all packed into a volume of space only a few light-years across. The cluster may have triggered the formation of a new star cluster just five million years ago when it plowed through the Milky Way's disk. The cluster squeezed clouds of gas and dust, which then coalesced under its own gravity to form a cluster of several dozen stars. [Credit: Francesco Ferraro (Bologna Observatory), ESA, NASA]
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