Over the next week Mars continues its eastward ‘march’ and will pass by two globular star clusters, coming within about 0.20o from M-28 on 2-3 November, and about 1o from M-22 on the 6th. This animated graphic is set to 1-day intervals and starts on October 27th and ends on November 9th. Globular cluster M-28 has an apparent magnitude of 8.5 and is estimated to be 19000 light years distant, in Sagittarius. Also in Sagittarius is globular cluster M-22 at a distance of 10000 light years with an apparent magnitude 6.5.
A globular star cluster is a compact group of stars numbering in the tens of thousands to a few million. Round in appearance globular star clusters are mostly located in the galaxy’s halo, a spherical area around the galaxy center where the older stars in the galaxy are located. Globular clusters contain the oldest stars in the galaxy.
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Click here to go to the Qué tal in the Current Skies web site for more observing information for this month.