NGC 1664 is an

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of tens 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 of

Auriga Auriga is a constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere. It is one of the 88 modern constellations; it was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy. Its name is Latin for '(the) charioteer', associating i ...

. It contains stars with a total of around 640

solar mass The solar mass () is a frequently used unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is approximately equal to the mass of the Sun. It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxie ...

es with a tidal radius of . NGC 1664 is a somewhat young cluster, with an age of 675 ± 50 Myr, and is dynamically relaxed. It is located some 4,200 light-years away, or about 1.3 kpc. Born outside of the

solar circle In astronomy, the local standard of rest or LSR is a reference frame which follows the mean motion of material in the Milky Way in the neighborhood of the Sun (stars in radius 100 pc from the Sun), on average sharing the same velocity around the ...

, it orbits the center of the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

every 244 million years.

References

External links

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NGC 1664

NGC 1664

Image NGC 1664
* NGC 1664

1664 Events January–March * January 5 – Battle of Surat in India: The Maratha leader, Chhatrapati Shivaji, defeats the Mughal Army Captain Inayat Khan, and sacks Surat. * January 7 – Indian entrepreneur Virji Vora, desc ...

Auriga {{star-cluster-stub