Mayall II

Mayall II, also known as G1, is a globular cluster in M31, the Andromeda galaxy.

It is located at a distance of 130,000 light years from the center of the Andromeda galaxy and is about 2.5 million light-years away from Earth. He is the (absolute) brightest globular cluster in the Local Group. Its apparent brightness is 13.81 mag. G1 has twice the mass of Omega Centauri. Due to the large metallicity and their high variability within the cluster, suggesting several generations of stars and a long-lasting star formation phase, there is doubt that G1 is a globular star clusters really exist, or whether it is, rather, the center of a dwarf galaxy whose edges by the Andromeda galaxy captured.

Origin of the name

Mayall II is named after Nicholas Mayall and Olin Eggen Jeuck who discovered the star cluster in 1953. The names SKHB 1 goes to Wallace LW Sargent, CT Kowal, F.D.A. Hartwick and Sidney van den Bergh back in 1977, is also the name G1 introduced. The name HBK 0-1 goes to J. P. Huchra, J. P. Brodie and S. M. Kent ( 1991).