APOD
Open Cluster M50 Credit and Copyright:
January 28, 1997
About This Image
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.
On This Day in Space History
On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after launch, a tragedy that reshaped NASA safety protocols.
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