[Image:A Swarm of Ancient Stars - GPN-2000-000930.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The Messier 80 globular cluster in the constellation Scorpius is located about 30,000 light-years from the Sun and contains hundreds of thousands of stars.]] A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core  as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is derived from the Latin globulus—a small sphere. A globular cluster is sometimes known more simply as a globular.