Deep space
Omega Centauri
Globular cluster · NGC 5139
The Milky Way's largest globular cluster
About 10 million stars packed into a sphere roughly 150 light-years across. It may be the stripped core of a dwarf galaxy swallowed by the Milky Way.
In your sky
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Key facts
Distance
~17,000 light-years
Stars
~10 million
Apparent mag.
+3.9
Age
~12 billion years
Did you know
- Ptolemy catalogued it as a single star.
- Evidence for an intermediate-mass black hole in its core was published in 2024.
- It looks like a fuzzy star to the naked eye.
