The Pyxis globular cluster is a

globular cluster A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of memb ...

in the constellation

Pyxis Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Abbreviated from Pyxis Nautica, its name is Latin for a mariner's compass (contrasting with Circinus, which represents a draftsman's compasses). Pyxis was introduced by Nicolas-Louis ...

. It lies around 130,000 light-years distant from earth and around 133,000 light-years distant from the centre of the Milky Way—a distance not previously thought to contain globular clusters. It is around 13.3 ± 1.3 billion years old. Discovered in 1995 by astronomer Ronald Weinberger while he was looking for planetary nebulae, it is in the

Galactic halo A galactic halo is an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy which extends beyond the main, visible component. Several distinct components of galaxies comprise the halo: * the stellar halo * the galactic corona (hot gas, i.e. a plas ...

. Irwin and colleagues noted that it appears to lie on the same plane as the

Large Magellanic Cloud The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major, is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (≈160,000 light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the ...

and raised the possibility that it might be an escaped object from that galaxy.

References

Pyxis globular cluster Pyxis {{Star-cluster-stub