[9] It contains several hundred thousand stars, and ranks among the densest globular clusters in the Milky Way.

It hosts relatively many blue stragglers, stars that appear to be much younger than the cluster.

Images from the Hubble Space Telescope have shown pronounced districts of these stragglers in M80, suggesting the center of the cluster to have a very high capture and collision rate.

[9] On May 21, 1860, a nova was found in M80 that delivered a magnitude of +7.0 to telescopes, binoculars and astute eyes.

[9] This variable star, given designation T Scorpii, reached an absolute magnitude of −8.5, briefly outshining the cluster.