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.
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. |



