The southern constellation Tucana (the Toucan) is home to several clutches of stars, among them the globular cluster 47 Tucanae.

Seen here, 47 Tucanae is one of the largest and brightest globular clusters in the night sky, and is surpassed only by an object known as Omega Centauri.

Globular clusters contain several tens of thousands of stars which are all thought to have formed from the same cloud of gas at about the same time.

French astronomer Nicholas Louis de Lacaille first discovered 47 Tucanae during a 1751 survey of nebulous objects in the southern sky. The globular cluster sits about 16,000 light-years from Earth and spans a diameter of about 120 light-years (making it appear as large as the full moon in the night sky). The cluster also sports a total mass of about one million times that of the Sun.

47 Tucanae is so densely packed that stars are separated by less than one-tenth of a light-year. For comparison, the nearest star to our own Sun – Proxima Centauri – is about four light-years away. One light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about

Astronomers used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope to obtain this view of 47 Tucanae.

-- SPACE.com Staff

Credit: ESO/FORS/VLT.