M15 Globular Star Cluster

This ball of stars is one of the brightest in the sky and can even be seen without binoculars if one is lucky enough to find a dark area. It is 30,000 light years away and is 160 light years (960 trillion miles) in diameter. The light that created this image left M15 just as Cro Magnon Man was finishing off the Neanderthals in Europe. M15 has several dark patches inside the core leading many scientists to theorize that it may have a black hole inside. Large amounts of X-Ray radiation coming from the cluster lend credence to this idea.