Messier 37 (also known as M37 or NGC 2099) is the brightest and richest

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

in the constellation Auriga. It was discovered by the Italian astronomer

Giovanni Battista Hodierna Giovanni Battista Hodierna, also spelled as Odierna (April 13, 1597 – April 6, 1660) was an Italian astronomer at the court of Giulio Tomasi, Duke of Palma (Palma di Montechiaro). He compiled a catalogue of comets and other celestial objects ...

before 1654. M37 was missed by French astronomer

Guillaume Le Gentil Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisière (, 12 September 1725 – 22 October 1792) was a French astronomer who discovered several nebulae and was appointed to the Royal Academy of Sciences. He made unsuccessful attemp ...

when he rediscovered M36 and M38 in 1749. French astronomer

Charles Messier Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose f ...

independently rediscovered M37 in September 1764 but all three of these clusters were recorded by Hodierna. It is classified as Trumpler type I,1,r or I,2,r. M37 exists in the antipodal direction, opposite from the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact ...

as seen from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

, so is in one of the nearby outer arms. Specifically it is still close enough to be in

our own Our Own may refer to: * Our Own (2004 film) ''Our Own'' (russian: Свои, Svoi) is a 2004 Russian action drama film directed by Dmitri Meskhiyev. Plot In October 1941, the Soviet Union is experiencing an invasion by Nazi Germany. Despite So ...

. Estimates of its age range from 347 million to 550 million years. It has 1,500 times the mass of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared rad ...

() and contains over 500 identified stars, with roughly 150 stars brighter than

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

12.5. M37 has at least a dozen

red giants A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or ...

and its hottest

surviving Survival skills are techniques that a person may use in order to sustain life in any type of natural environment or built environment. These techniques are meant to provide basic necessities for human life which include water, food, and s ...

main sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Her ...

star is of

stellar classification In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a prism or diffraction grating into a spectrum exhibiting t ...

B9 V. The abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium, what astronomers term

metallicity In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as ...

, is similar to, if not slightly higher than, the abundance in the Sun. As of 2022, it contains only the third known

planetary nebula A planetary nebula (PN, plural PNe) is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer because they are unrelate ...

associated with an open cluster. At its estimated distance of around from Earth, the cluster's

angular diameter The angular diameter, angular size, apparent diameter, or apparent size is an angular distance describing how large a sphere or circle appears from a given point of view. In the vision sciences, it is called the visual angle, and in optics, it i ...

of 24

arcminute A minute of arc, arcminute (arcmin), arc minute, or minute arc, denoted by the symbol , is a unit of angular measurement equal to of one degree. Since one degree is of a turn (or complete rotation), one minute of arc is of a turn. The na ...

s corresponds to a physical extent of about . The tidal radius of the cluster, where external

gravitational perturbation In astronomy, perturbation is the complex motion of a massive body subjected to forces other than the gravitational attraction of a single other massive body. The other forces can include a third (fourth, fifth, etc.) body, resistance, as from ...

s begin to have a significant influence on the orbits of its member stars, is about . This cluster is following an orbit through the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked ey ...

with a period of 219.3 Ma and an

eccentricity Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off- center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a ...

of 0.22. This will bring it as close as to, and as distant as from, the

. It reaches a peak distance above the

galactic plane The galactic plane is the plane on which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles. In actual usage, the terms ''galactic plane'' and ''galactic poles'' usual ...

of and will cross the plane with a period of 31.7 Ma.

Sky charts

References

External links

Messier 37, SEDS Messier pages
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Messier 37 Messier 037 Messier 037

037 37 may refer to: * 37 (number), the natural number following 36 and preceding 38 Years * 37 BC * AD 37 * 1937 * 2037 Other uses * ''37'' (album), by King Never, 2013 * ''37'' (film), a 2016 film about the murder of Kitty Genovese * 37 (MBTA b ...

Messier 037 Perseus Arm ?

Sky charts

See also

References

External links