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[deleted] t1_jcsc725 wrote

[deleted]

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imtourist t1_jcsqjl1 wrote

I think this Youtube video discusses globular clusters along the way and he basically said that the stars there are much closer together than our own sun + Proxima Centauri as well there would be a lot more of them. I think said that at night there would be so much starlight that it might cast shadows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naz67yhu_g8

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HellBlazer1221 t1_jctogyt wrote

This beautiful picture causes me a lot of existential crisis and also helps relieve some of my stress. What is our life purpose amidst this ocean of wondrous creation.

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arealuser100notfake t1_jcsfez0 wrote

Are the stars we see there closer to each other than the sun is from other stars?

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axialintellectual t1_jcszb2m wrote

Significantly closer! The stellar density in the Solar neighborhood is around 0.14 pc^(-3), in globular cluster cores that goes up to ~ 1000 pc^(-3). That may also mean that the formation (and survival) of any planets is significantly suppressed around the stars in a globular cluster.

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beef-o-lipso t1_jctc6ok wrote

Why would an increase in stellar density suppress planet formation? Curious.

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axialintellectual t1_jctcpbv wrote

Good question! On the planet formation side: protoplanetary disks would be heavily irradiated by the other nearby stars, which tends to shorten the lifetime available to planet formation; they can also get disrupted by flyby-events. If a planetary system does form, those same flybys continue and can disrupt it over longer timescales. On the other hand, we don't - to the best of my knowledge - have very good constraints on planet occurrence rates in globular clusters, because they're far away and hard to observe, but I would say from a theoretical point of view these are quite well-understood mechanisms.

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beef-o-lipso t1_jctdq0p wrote

Thanks! I guess I wouldn't have expected much interaction between the systems.

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axialintellectual t1_jcth8h9 wrote

It's still rare, but the orders of magnitude higher density, and the fact that globular clusters get quite old, means that there's a lot of opportunities. Here's a recent paper about the topic, if you want to read more.

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WorldEaterYoshi t1_jcsih2l wrote

I was asking myself that exact same question. There could by intergalactic civilizations out there while we're just some Rogue outcast system no one knows about.

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the_fungible_man t1_jcsbkdw wrote

Ok. Care to tell us the name of this object? It appears to be M3 in Canes Venatici.

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Davicho77 OP t1_jcsbw3p wrote

Sorry about that. Is the Globular cluster Messier 3.

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earthbound_misfit42 t1_jcvgg4b wrote

Dude it's like if I would imagine you could see the heavens from earth, this is what I would expect it to be like.

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Big_Dog423 t1_jcvjiub wrote

I was just thinking that. It gives me a strange feeling looking at this and I love it. It made me think that God created all of this and heaven would be a place somewhere in that cluster hopefully lol. I wish there wasn't so much light pollution around where I live because I want to get a nice telescope to look at this stuff. I might get one anyways I would just have to travel out to nowhere and camp for the night.

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d4rk_fusion t1_jcvsfx6 wrote

Does someone count that shit or do they just set up a computer to count every dot

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girthemoose t1_jcuzsgv wrote

Space has a way of intriguing and terrifying me at the same time.

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boundegar t1_jct4seo wrote

An incredible half-million stars? The galaxy has what, 100 billion? I guess numbers are hard.

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BlueNotesBlues t1_jctihh6 wrote

You have an incredible one ton of sand in your house? There are millions of tons of sand on beaches. I guess numbers are hard.

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Earthfall10 t1_jctxvi1 wrote

Half a million stars is incredibly large for a globular cluster. I guess context is hard.

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boundegar t1_jctynj7 wrote

Is it? I don't know the number of stars in the average globular cluster. I guess the rest of you do. *hanging my head*

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Earthfall10 t1_jctz367 wrote

The next half of the title literally says it's one of the largest and brightest globular clusters.

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