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Star cluster

FSR 0037

Open star cluster · 1.4 billion years

An open cluster of stars born together from the same gas cloud in the Milky Way’s disc; the Galaxy’s tidal forces will disperse it within a few hundred million years. Position, distance, age and member count come from the MWSC catalogue; the total brightness is roughly estimated from the member count.

TypeStar cluster
ConstellationSagittarius
Distance2,711 pc (8.8 thousand ly)
Age1.4 billion years
Member stars (MWSC)109
Reddening E(B−V)0.42
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)19h 01m 23.9s
Declination (J2000)−26° 34′ 12″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 63° N. South of latitude 63° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in July, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 8,842 years ago. At that time the first farming villages were being founded; there was no writing yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 157 million years.

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