Star cluster
Saurer 1
Open star cluster · 4.0 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 | Canis Minor |
| Distance | 13,719 pc (44.7 thousand ly) |
| Age | 4.0 billion years |
| Member stars (MWSC) | 12 |
| Reddening E(B−V) | 0.04 |
| Metallicity [Fe/H] | -0.38 |
| Source | MWSC (Kharchenko et al. 2013) |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 7h 20m 56.0s |
| Declination (J2000) | +1° 48′ 00″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 88° S. 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 45 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 794 million years.