Celestial Objects

Messier 54

Star Clusters

Citation Formats

General Reference

Space and Astronomy Atlas. "Messier 54." Accessed September 2, 2026. https://dev-space.interactiveatlas.org/celestial-objects/messier-54.

APA Style

Space and Astronomy Atlas. (n.d.). Messier 54. Retrieved September 2, 2026, from https://dev-space.interactiveatlas.org/celestial-objects/messier-54

BibTeX

@misc{spaceandastronomyatlas-messier-54,
  author = {Space and Astronomy Atlas},
  title = {Messier 54},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-space.interactiveatlas.org/celestial-objects/messier-54},
  note = {Accessed September 2, 2026}
}

Messier 54, also known as M54 or NGC 6715, is a globular cluster of stars in the constellation Sagittarius, discovered by Charles Messier in 1778. Unlike the great majority of globular clusters, which belong to the Milky Way's own halo, M54 was found in 1994 to actually belong to the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy, a small satellite galaxy being tidally disrupted by the Milky Way, making it the first globular cluster confirmed to lie outside our own galaxy. It lies roughly 87,000 light-years from Earth.

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