Look at the open cluster of stars. It is 15 thousand light years distant from Earth

Open clusters (OCs) are groups of stars weakly bound to each other by gravity, which

are formed from the same giantmolecular cloud. So far, more than 1,000 of these have been discovered in the Milky Way, but scientists continue their search, hoping to find more such star clusters. The fact is that detailed study of open clusters of galaxies is critical to improving our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.

NGC 2158 (other names:OCL 468, Lund 206 and Melotte 40) is an old low-metal open cluster that sits on the periphery of the Milky Way. The cluster is 14,700 light years distant from us, and its age is estimated at about 2 billion years.

Open cluster NGC 2158. Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

A team of astronomers led by Devesh P.Sariya from National Tsing-Hua University in Hsin-Chu, Taiwan, analyzed data from Gaia's second data release (DR2) to learn more about the properties and nature of NGC 2158. Hi-Tech previously wrote about the new Gaia data.

 Look at the most detailed catalog of billions of stars in the Milky Way

 An international group of astronomers has announced the most detailed catalog of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

Scientists conducted photometric and kinematicanalysis of the old open cluster NGC 2158. Research has shown that NGC 2158 is even farther than previously thought - about 15,290 light-years from Earth. The limiting radius and age of the cluster were estimated at 23.5 arc minutes and 9.38 billion years, respectively.

In addition, astronomers have been able to identify about 800 member stars of NGC 2158.

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