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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.

See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available.

Open Cluster M50

Explanation: Explanation : Many stars form in clusters. Two types of star clusters are visible in our Milky Way Galaxy : open clusters and globular clusters . Open clusters like M50, shown above , typically contain hundreds of stars , many of which are bright, young, and blue. In fact, most of the bright blue stars in the above picture belong to M50 , but most of the dimmer, red stars do not. M50 lies about 3000 light-years from Earth and is about 20 light years across. Open clusters tend to have irregular shapes and are mostly found in the plane of our Galaxy .

Date January 28, 1997
Credit Open Cluster M50
Credit and Copyright: S. Kohle, T. Credner et al.
Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.