Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Cetus (Cet)
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Whiting 1, Gary Imm
Whiting 1, Gary Imm

Whiting 1

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Whiting 1, Gary Imm
Whiting 1, Gary Imm

Whiting 1

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Description

This Astrobin Debut Object is a young extragalactic globular cluster located 100,000 light years away in the constellation of Cetus at a declination of -3 degrees.  It spans 30 arc-seconds in our apparent view, smaller than the current apparent size of Jupiter, and has a diameter of 15 light years.  The cluster was discovered in 2002. 

This dim cluster is the youngest globular cluster in the Milky Way, at an age of about 6 billion years.  Although the cluster is magnitude 15, the brightest members are 18th magnitude.

This cluster is believed to have originated outside of the Milky Way galaxy, in the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy.  It is now within our Milky Way, in the former galaxy’s stellar stream.

Note the small faint galaxy just to the right of the cluster.

For those of you who would like to learn more about this cluster, this is an interesting paper.

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