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Nebula

W 49

H II region

A cloud of ionised hydrogen (H II region): a stellar nursery glowing in the ultraviolet light of the young, hot O and B stars inside it. The distance is measured from the parallax of masers in the region.

TypeNebula
ConstellationAquila
Distance11,100 pc (36.2 thousand ly)
Diameter71.8 ly
WISE nameG043.170-00.004
Catalogue statusKnown H II region
SourceWISE H II Catalog v3.0
Right ascension (J2000)19h 10m 17.0s
Declination (J2000)+9° 06′ 03″

In the sky

Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 81° S. It stands highest at midnight in July, the best time to observe it.

Through a telescope from Earth

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out 36 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 642 million years.

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