Star cluster
FSR 1640
Open star cluster · 1.6 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.
| Type | Star cluster |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Chamaeleon |
| Distance | 6,213 pc (20.3 thousand ly) |
| Age | 1.6 billion years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 78 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.10 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 13h 11m 54.6s |
| Declination (J2000) | −77° 27′ 00″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 13° N. South of latitude 13° S it never sets.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 20 thousand years ago. At that time Homo sapiens was spreading out of Africa; there was no farming yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 359 million years.