NGC 6712
globular cluster
NGC 6712 is a globular cluster that was probably discovered by Le Gentil on July 9, 1749 when investigating the Milky Way star cloud in Aquila. He described it as a "true nebula," in contrast to the open star cluster M11. Independently discovered by William Herschel on June 16, 1784 and cataloged as H I.47; he also first classified it as a round nebula. John Herschel was the first to describe it as a globular star cluster during his observations in the 1830s. The cluster appears to be about 12 billion years old and may have originally been significantly more massive having undergone significant mass loss due to passes through the galactic disc. For a globular cluster, NGC 6712 is somewhat metal-rich.
NGC 6712 is home to a black widow pulsar named PSR J1853−0842A. Such systems involve an extremely rapidly rotating pulsar, accompanied by a low-mass star or brown dwarf. The high amounts of radiation emitted from the pulsar contributes to the evaporation of the low-mass companion, which has a mass between 0.018 and 0.036 solar masses. Although pulsars rotate more slowly with age, PSR J1853−0842A is accelerating, which would not be possible without it being within a globular cluster.
“NGC 6712” enters the record as globular cluster. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what globular and cluster can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“NGC 6712” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, globular and cluster provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1147238. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1749 and 1784.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “NGC 6712” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.