Star cluster
Melotte 66
Open star cluster · 2.3 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 | Puppis |
| Distance | 4,487 pc (14.6 thousand ly) |
| Age | 2.3 billion years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 195 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.13 |
| Metallicity [Fe/H] | -0.33 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 7h 26m 12.1s |
| Declination (J2000) | −47° 40′ 05″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 42° N. South of latitude 42° S it never sets. 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 15 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 260 million years.