Star cluster
Ruprecht 42
Open star cluster · 501 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 | Puppis |
| Distance | 1,964 pc (6.4 thousand ly) |
| Age | 501 million years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 60 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.42 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 7h 57m 38.9s |
| Declination (J2000) | −25° 56′ 06″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 64° N. South of latitude 64° 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 6,406 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 114 million years.