Star cluster
Ruprecht 96
Open star cluster · 1.1 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 | Centaurus |
| Distance | 1,251 pc (4.1 thousand ly) |
| Age | 1.1 billion years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 98 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.04 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 11h 50m 47.4s |
| Declination (J2000) | −62° 08′ 59″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 28° N. South of latitude 28° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in March, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 4,080 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 72 million years.