Globular Star Clusters
They are not as tightly packed as might be imagined
Globular clusters are spherical clusters of stars that typically contain a few hundreds of thousands of stars, or even as many as a million. They are not galaxies, but are associated with galaxies in that they orbit around the galactic plane in a spherical halo.
About 150 globular clusters have been detected around our own galaxy, at distances of 60,000 light years (or more) from the galactic plane. A few can be detected with the naked eye, looking like faint, fuzzy stars. One of the best-known has been given the designation M13 and is visible on summer evenings in the constellation of Hercules. Seen through binoculars it has the appearance of a mothball, and it is only when seen through a large telescope that its true nature is revealed. The best images have come from the Hubble Space Telescope which has shown it to be a whirling mass of tightly packed stars.
However, although the density of stars towards the centre of a globular cluster is up to 100 times greater than in our own region of space, that does not mean that the stars are constantly crashing into each other. If you fired a gun at a point…