NGC 6352 (also known as Caldwell 81) is a

globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of membe ...

of stars in the southern

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Ara ARA may refer to: Media and the arts * American-Romanian Academy of Arts and Sciences * '' Artistička Radna Akcija'', compilation album released in former Yugoslavia * Associate of the Royal Academy, denoting membership in the British Royal Aca ...

, located approximately from the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

. It was discovered by Scottish astronomer

James Dunlop James Dunlop FRSE (31 October 1793 – 22 September 1848) was a Scottish astronomer, noted for his work in Australia. He was employed by Sir Thomas Brisbane to work as astronomer's assistant at his private observatory, once located at Paramat ...

on May 14, 1826. The cluster has a

Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class The Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class is a classification system on a scale of one to twelve using Roman numerals for globular clusters according to their concentration. The most highly concentrated clusters such as M75 are classified as Class I ...

of XI:. A

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

with a

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

is required to resolve the stars within this loose cluster. This cluster is about 12.67 billion years old with two distinct stellar populations; the second generation is only around 10 million years younger than the first. It lies approximately from the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact rad ...

and from the

galactic plane The galactic plane is the plane on which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms ''galactic plane'' and ''galactic poles'' usuall ...

. The orbital motion of this cluster through the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

suggests it is a member of the

bulge __NOTOC__ Bulge may refer to: Astronomy and geography *Bulge (astronomy), a tightly packed group of stars at the center of a spiral galaxy *Equatorial bulge, a bulge around the equator of a planet due to rotation *Tharsis bulge, vast volcanic pla ...

disk Disk or disc may refer to: * Disk (mathematics), a geometric shape * Disk storage Music * Disc (band), an American experimental music band * ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby Other uses * Disk (functional analysis), a subset of a vector sp ...

population. It is relatively metal-rich for an object of this class, having a

metallicity In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as a ...

of –0.70. The core radius is and the

tidal radius A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of membe ...

is .

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ngc 6352 Globular clusters Ara (constellation) 6352 081b