Star cluster
IRAS 06562-0337
Open star cluster · 50 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.
| Type | Star cluster |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Monoceros |
| Distance | 6,091 pc (19.9 thousand ly) |
| Age | 50 million years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 21 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.94 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 6h 58m 44.0s |
| Declination (J2000) | −3° 41′ 06″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 86° N. It stands highest at midnight in January, the best time to observe it.
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 352 million years.