More than a trillion stars reside in this somewhat spherical galaxy, named M87.

The galaxy is part of the relatively nearby Virgo cluster of galaxies, about 60 million light-years from our own Milky Way. M87 looks nothing like the Milky Way.

M87 is known technically as an elliptical galaxy, and it's a strange one. It contains an unusually high number of globular clusters, groupings of ancient stars that are often leftovers from the very early years of the universe and which served as galactic building blocks.

While the Milky Way harbors about 200 globular clusters, some 14,000 of them populate M87.

Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / J.-C. Cuillandre / Coelum