The Beehive Cluster and Mars - EnchantedLearning.com

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Shimmerings
Enchanted Learning® Photoblog Posted September 14, 2013 11:33 am

The Beehive Cluster and Mars

The Beehive Cluster (M44, NGC 2632), at the center of this photo, is about 600 light-years away. The starlight that we're seeing now left it in the 1400s!

The Beehive Cluster is visible in dark skies to the naked eye as a whitish patch, but telescopes reveal that it contains about 1000 stars. Before the individual stars were seen, it was known as Praesepe, the Manger.

The brightest "star" in the photo, at the bottom, a little left of center, is not a star at all—it's the planet Mars. In 2012, two planets were discovered orbiting Sun-like stars in the Beehive Cluster.

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Date taken: September 12, 2013 Place taken: Mercer Island, WA, USA Mitchell Spector Copyright ©2013 Enchanted Learning, LLC	RELATED IMAGES The Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus, to Scale The Pleiades The Pleiades Circle of Stars The Pleiades, Moon, Jupiter, Aldebaran, and Venus over Lake Washington The Pleiades Looking Down on the Moon Pleiades and Moon Rising The Andromeda Galaxy Close-up of the Andromeda Galaxy The Beehive Cluster and Mars The Moon, Saturn, and Zubenelgenubi Setting over Seattle Messier 35 Open Star Cluster Christmas Tree Cluster The Pleiades, in Taurus Big Dipper over Lake Washington Sky Triangle: Comet Lovejoy, the Pleiades, and Aldebaran The Moon and Mars - February 2020