Posted: Wed, Oct 13, 2004, 1:06 PM ET (1706 GMT)
After believing they had found all the globular clusters surrounding the Milky Way galaxy, astronomers reported Tuesday that they had found another one using the Spitzer Space Telescope. The cluster, one of about 150 known to exist, is considered one of the "fossils" dating back to the early history of the galaxy, at least 10 billion years ago. The cluster had eluded previous searches at visible wavelengths because it is hidden behind the dusty plane of the galaxy, but showed up in infrared observations by Spitzer. The cluster, dubbed the Cowboy Cluster by the University of Wyoming astronomers who found it, is about 9,000 light-years from Earth and weighs about 300,000 solar masses.

Related Links:

•  Casper (WY) Star-Tribune article
•  NASA/JPL press release