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Messier 11: Difference between revisions
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==Science and History== | ==Science and History== | ||
The [[Messier 11]] Wild Duck cluster is an open star cluster like the Pleiades and the Hyades, except that it’s much farther away. The Pleiades and Hyades cluster lie about 430 light-years and 150 light-years away, respectively, whereas the Wild Duck Cluster resides some 5,500 light-years distant. It was discovered in 1681 by Gottfried Kirch, and was probably first resoved into stars by William Durheim around 1733.At first glance, the Wild Duck Cluster looks like a globular cluster, like M13 and M5. M11 is one of the richest and most compact of open star clusters, composed of a few thousand hot, young stars that are only a few million years old. Globular clusters, on the other hand, contain tens to hundreds of thousands of stars that are billions of years old.The 19th century observer Admiral Smyth thought the distinctive wedge-shape group of stars in M11 resembled a flock of wild ducks flying by, hence the nickname Wild Duck Cluster. The luminosity of many of M11’s stars exceeds that of the sun by a hundredfold. If we lived on a planet within this star cluster, we’d see hundreds of first-magnitude stars filling the nighttime, with many of these stars outshining Sirius, the brightest star to shine in Earth’s night sky.The M11 Wild Duck Cluster is positioned at RA: 18h 51m 6s; Dec: 6 degrees 16′ south.<ref>[http://earthsky.org/clusters-nebulae-galaxies/wild-duck-cluster-deep-sky-gem-by-eagles-tail Earthsky]</ref> | The [[Messier 11]] Wild Duck cluster is an open star cluster like the Pleiades and the Hyades, except that it’s much farther away. The Pleiades and Hyades cluster lie about 430 light-years and 150 light-years away, respectively, whereas the Wild Duck Cluster resides some 5,500 light-years distant. It was discovered in 1681 by Gottfried Kirch, and was probably first resoved into stars by William Durheim around 1733.At first glance, the Wild Duck Cluster looks like a globular cluster, like M13 and M5. M11 is one of the richest and most compact of open star clusters, composed of a few thousand hot, young stars that are only a few million years old. Globular clusters, on the other hand, contain tens to hundreds of thousands of stars that are billions of years old.The 19th century observer Admiral Smyth thought the distinctive wedge-shape group of stars in M11 resembled a flock of wild ducks flying by, hence the nickname Wild Duck Cluster. The luminosity of many of M11’s stars exceeds that of the sun by a hundredfold. If we lived on a planet within this star cluster, we’d see hundreds of first-magnitude stars filling the nighttime, with many of these stars outshining Sirius, the brightest star to shine in Earth’s night sky.The M11 Wild Duck Cluster is positioned at RA: 18h 51m 6s; Dec: 6 degrees 16′ south.<ref>[http://earthsky.org/clusters-nebulae-galaxies/wild-duck-cluster-deep-sky-gem-by-eagles-tail Earthsky]</ref> | ||