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APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
NGC 4755: A Jewel Box of Stars
Explanation: Explanation : The great variety of star colors in this open cluster underlie it's name: The Jewel Box. The bright central star Kappa Crucis is red, in contrast to the many blue stars that surround it. The cluster contains just over 100 stars, and might be no older than 10 million years. Open clusters are younger, contain few stars, and contain a much higher fraction of blue stars than do globular clusters . This Jewel Box lies about 7500 light-years away, so the light that we see today was emitted from the clusters before even the Great Pyramids in Egypt were built.
| Date | November 11, 1996 |
|---|---|
| Credit |
NGC 4755: A Jewel Box of Stars Credit: Anglo-Australian Telescope photograph by David Malin Copyright: Anglo-Australian Telescope Board |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |