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Star cluster

FSR 0702

Open star cluster · 794 million 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
ConstellationAuriga
Distance2,501 pc (8.2 thousand ly)
Age794 million years
Member stars (MWSC)37
Reddening E(B−V)1.00
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)4h 51m 33.1s
Declination (J2000)+45° 44′ 06″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 44° S. North of latitude 44° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in December, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 8,157 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 145 million years.

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