Stars Galore

A Hubble Space Telescope image shows the core of M2, a globular cluster that is about 35,000 light-years from Earth. The cluster contains perhaps 150,000 stars, which are packed into a spherical region of space only about 200 light-years across. From a planet inside the cluster, the sky would abound with so many brilliant stars that there would be no true "night." The cluster's stars are about 12 billion years old, which makes them some of the oldest stars in the entire galaxy. [NASA/STScI]