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Star cluster

FSR 1672

Open star cluster · 4.0 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
ConstellationCentaurus
Distance3,020 pc (9.9 thousand ly)
Age4.0 billion years
Member stars (MWSC)76
Reddening E(B−V)0.00
SourceMWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013)
Right ascension (J2000)13h 38m 00.6s
Declination (J2000)−43° 10′ 48″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 47° N. South of latitude 47° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in April, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 9,850 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 175 million years.

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