NGC 5897 is a globular cluster in the constellation Libra. This satellite of the Milky Way, which is quite remote (located about 41,000 light years away), has a diameter of over 170 light years. With its Shapley–Sawyer Concentration Class of XI, it has very low star density even in its center.
The stars of the cluster have only 0.91% of the Sun's metallicity, while the abundance of elements produced by the alpha process is roughly 5 times larger. This means that the cluster formed in a time before the galaxy formed a disk and spiral arms. However, some of the stars are apparently younger, indicating multiple star-forming epochs.
NGC 5897 has a diameter of 12.6 arcminutes and an apparent magnitude of 8.5.
References
External links
- Media related to NGC 5897 at Wikimedia Commons
- NGC 5897
