A UK-led team of astronomers has discovered a completely new type of star cluster around a neighbouring galaxy.
The new-found clusters contain hundreds of thousands of stars, a similar number to the so-called “globular” star clusters which have long been familiar to astronomers.
What distinguishes them from the globular clusters is that they are much larger – several hundred light years across – and hundreds of times less dense. The distances between the stars are, therefore, much greater within the newly discovered "extended clusters".