Globular clusters are among the oldest known objects in the universe and are relics from the earliest times of galaxy formation.
There are about 150-180 of these clusters around our Milky Way galaxy. One of them, NGC 6380, is approximately 35,500 light years distant in the constellation Scorpio.
"NGC 6380 is not a particularly interesting name, but it indicates that this cluster is cataloged in the New General Catalog (NGC), which was originally compiled in 1888. This group, however, has been known by many other names," explain the Hubble astronomers.
"NGC 6380 was originally discovered by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop in 1826 , and rather immodestly named Dun 538. Eight years later, in 1834, it was independently rediscovered by British astronomer John Herschel , who went on to call it H 3688. The cluster was rediscovered in 1959 by the Armenian-Mexican astronomer Paris Pişmiş, who cataloged it as Tonantzintla 1 – and who, to continue the pattern, also referred to it as Pişmiş 25. In addition to its colorful history of rediscovery, until the 1950s it was thought that NGC 6380 was an open cluster, ”the experts clarify.
"It was the British astronomer A. David Thackeray who realized that it was in fact a globular cluster," they conclude.
