M44 - Beehive Cluster

This is the beautiful open star cluster M44, also called Beehive Cluster or Praesepe. It's a relatively close star cluster, only about 600 light years away from us. M44 contains about 1000 stars, with 700 of them being red dwarfs, almost 300 sun-like stars and 20 bright and blue A-type stars. The proper motion of the star cluster suggests that it has been part of the Hyades, the closest star cluster to earth.

All text and articles published by Sun.org are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.