Gumball Globular

Also known as M12 and NGC 6218, the Gumball Globular is a globular cluster in the Milky Way Halo that contains about 200 000 stars.

In most stellar clusters, the least massive stars are by far the most common. But this is not the case for M12 - it is surprisingly devoid of low-mass stars. The cluster is thought to have lost these stars to the gravity of the Milky Way. Estimations say M12 may have lost as much as four times as many stars as it still has - roughly one million stars must have been ejected in to the halo of the Milky Way, probably because the cluster ventures too close to the galactic centre during its orbit.

The total remaining lifetime of M12 is predicted to be about 4500 million years, or about a third of its present age. This is very short compared to the typical expected globular cluster's lifetime, which is about 20 000 million years.