Star cluster
Ruprecht 78
Open star cluster · 18 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 | Vela |
| Distance | 1,706 pc (5.6 thousand ly) |
| Age | 18 million years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 115 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.44 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 9h 29m 02.4s |
| Declination (J2000) | −53° 42′ 36″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 36° N. South of latitude 36° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in February, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 5,564 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 99 million years.