Messier 72 (M72)

This rich collection of scattered stars, known as Messier 72, looks like a city seen from an airplane window at night, as small glints of light from suburban homes dot the outskirts of the bright city center. M72 is actually a globular cluster, an ancient spherical collection of old stars packed much closer together at its center, like buildings in the heart of a city compared to less urban areas. As well as huge numbers of stars in the cluster itself, the picture captures the images of many much more distant galaxies seen between and around the cluster stars. The cluster is located in the constellation Aquarius and is twice the distance of our solar system from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Its mass is approximately 168,000 times that of our Sun.