This article is about the Beehive Cluster. For other uses, see Beehive.
The Beehive Cluster (also known as Praesepe (Latin for "manger" or "crib"), M44, NGC 2632, or Cr 189), is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer. One of the nearest open clusters to Earth, it contains a larger population of stars than other nearby bright open clusters holding around 1,000 stars. Under dark skies, the Beehive Cluster looks like a small nebulous object to the naked eye, and has been known since ancient times. Classical astronomer Ptolemy described it as a "nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer". It was among the first objects that Galileo studied with his telescope.[3]
Messier 44 / Beehive Cluster
The Beehive Cluster in Cancer (north is to the right)
Map showing the location of M44 in the constellation of Cancer.
Age and proper motion coincide with those of the Hyades, suggesting they may share similar origins.[4][5] Both clusters also contain red giants and white dwarfs, which represent later stages of stellar evolution, along with many main sequence stars.
Distance to M44 is often cited to be between 160 and 187 parsecs (520–610 light years),[6][7][8] but the revised Hipparcos parallaxes (2009) for Praesepe members and the latest infrared color-magnitude diagram favors an analogous distance of 182 pc.[9][10] There are better age estimates of around 600 million years[5][7][11] (compared to about 625 million years for the Hyades).[12] The diameter of the bright inner cluster core is about 7.0 parsecs (23 light years).[11]
At 1.5° across, the cluster easily fits within the field of view of binoculars or low-powered small telescopes. Regulus, Castor, and Pollux are guide stars.
In 1609, Galileo first telescopically observed the Beehive and was able to resolve it into 40 stars. Charles Messier added it to his famous catalog in 1769 after precisely measuring its position in the sky. Along with the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades cluster, Messier's inclusion of the Beehive has been noted as curious, as most of Messier's objects were much fainter and more easily confused with comets. Another possibility is that Messier simply wanted to have a larger catalog than his scientific rival Lacaille, whose 1755 catalog contained 42 objects, and so he added some well-known bright objects to boost his list.[13]Wilhelm Schur, as director of the Göttingen Observatory, drew a map of the cluster in 1894.
Ancient Greeks and Romans saw this object as a manger from which two donkeys, the adjacent stars Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis, are eating; these are the donkeys that Dionysos and Silenus rode into battle against the Titans.[14]
Hipparchus (c.130 BC) refers to the cluster as Nephelion ("Little Cloud") in his star catalog.[15]Claudius Ptolemy's Almagest includes the Beehive Cluster as one of seven "nebulae" (four of which are real[16]), describing it as "The Nebulous Mass in the Breast (of Cancer)".[17]Aratus (c.260–270 BC) calls the cluster Achlus or "Little Mist" in his poem Phainomena.[15]
This perceived nebulous object is in the Ghost (Gui Xiu), the 23rd lunar mansion of ancient Chinese astrology. Ancient Chinese skywatchers saw this as a ghost or demon riding in a carriage and likened its appearance to a "cloud of pollen blown from willow catkins". It was also known by the somewhat less romantic name of Jishi qi (積屍氣, also transliterated Tseih She Ke), the "Exhalation of Piled-up Corpses".[15] It is also known simply as Jishi (積屍), "cumulative corpses".
Morphology and composition
Like many star clusters of all kinds, Praesepe has experienced mass segregation.[7][11][18] This means that bright massive stars are concentrated in the cluster's core, while dimmer and less massive stars populate its halo (sometimes called the corona). The cluster's core radius is estimated at 3.5 parsecs (11.4 light years); its half-mass radius is about 3.9 parsecs (12.7 light years); and its tidal radius is about 12 parsecs (39 light years).[7][11] However, the tidal radius also includes many stars that are merely "passing through" and not bona fide cluster members.
Widefield image of the Beehive Cluster
Altogether, the cluster contains at least 1000 gravitationally bound stars, for a total mass of about 500–600 Solar masses.[7][11] A recent survey counts 1010 high-probability members, of which 68% are M dwarfs, 30% are Sun-like stars of spectral classes F, G, and K, and about 2% are bright stars of spectral class A.[7] Also present are five giant stars, four of which have spectral class K0 III and the fifth G0 III.[4][7][19]
So far, eleven white dwarfs have been identified, representing the final evolutionary phase of the cluster's most massive stars, which originally belonged to spectral type B.[5]Brown dwarfs, however, are extremely rare in this cluster,[20] probably because they have been lost by tidal stripping from the halo.[7]
The cluster has a visual brightness of magnitude 3.7. Its brightest stars are blue-white and of magnitude 6 to 6.5. 42 Cancri is a confirmed member.
Photo of comet C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) next to Messier 44
Planets
In September, 2012 two planets which orbit separate stars were discovered in the Beehive Cluster. The finding was significant for being the first planets detected orbiting stars like Earth's Sun that were situated in stellar clusters. Planets had previously been detected in such clusters, but not orbiting stars like the Sun.
The planets have been designated Pr0201 b and Pr0211 b. The 'b' at the end of their names indicates that the bodies are planets. The discoveries are what have been termed Hot Jupiters, massive gas giants that, unlike the planet Jupiter, orbit very close to their parent stars. Since the discovery of both Hot jupiters, at least four more planets had been discovered by the kepler space telescope.[21]
^ ab Klein-Wassink, W.J. (1927). "The proper motion and the distance of the Praesepe cluster". Publications of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory Groningen. 41: 1–48. Bibcode:1927PGro...41....1K.
^ abc Dobbie PD; Napiwotzki R; Burleigh MR; et al. (2006). "New Praesepe white dwarfs and the initial mass-final mass relation". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 369 (1): 383–389. arXiv:astro-ph/0603314. Bibcode:2006MNRAS.369..383D. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2006.10311.x. S2CID 17914736.
^ Pinfield DJ; Dobbie PD; Jameson F; Steele IA; et al. (2003). "Brown dwarfs and low-mass stars in the Pleiades and Praesepe: Membership and binarity". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 342 (4): 1241–1259. arXiv:astro-ph/0303600. Bibcode:2003MNRAS.342.1241P. doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06630.x. S2CID 285922.
^ abcdefgh Kraus AL; Hillenbrand LA (2007). "The stellar populations of Praesepe and Coma Berenices". Astronomical Journal. 134 (6): 2340–2352. arXiv:0708.2719. Bibcode:2007AJ....134.2340K. doi:10.1086/522831. S2CID 15945900.
^van Leeuwen, F. "Parallaxes and proper motions for 20 open clusters as based on the new Hipparcos catalogue", A&A, 2009
^Majaess, D.; Turner, D.; Lane, D.; Krajci, T. "Deep Infrared ZAMS Fits to Benchmark Open Clusters Hosting delta Scuti Stars", Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, 2011
^ abcde Adams JD; Stauffer JR; Skrutskie MF; et al. (2002). "Structure of the Praesepe Star Cluster". Astronomical Journal. 124 (3): 1570–1584. Bibcode:2002AJ....124.1570A. doi:10.1086/342016.
^ Perryman M; Brown A; Lebreton Y; Gomez A; Turon C; Cayrel de Strobel G; et al. (1998). "The Hyades: Distance, structure, dynamics, and age". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 331: 81–120. arXiv:astro-ph/9707253. Bibcode:1998A&A...331...81P.
^ Frommert, Hartmut (1998). "Messier Questions & Answers". SEDS. from the original on 9 February 2005. Retrieved 2005-03-01.
^ Portegies Zwart SF; McMillan SL; Hut P; Makino J (2001). "Star cluster ecology IV. Dissection of an open star cluster: Photometry". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 321 (2): 199–226. arXiv:astro-ph/0005248. Bibcode:2001MNRAS.321..199P. doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.2001.03976.x. S2CID 18396503.
^ Abt HA; Willmarth DW (1999). "Binaries in the Praesepe and Coma star clusters and their implications for binary evolution". Astrophysical Journal. 521 (2): 682–690. Bibcode:1999ApJ...521..682A. doi:10.1086/307569. S2CID 119772785.
^ Gonzalez-Garcia BM; Zapatero Osorio MR; Bejar VJS; Bihain G; et al. (2006). "A search for substellar members in the Praesepe and Sigma Orionis clusters". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 460 (3): 799–810. arXiv:astro-ph/0609283. Bibcode:2006A&A...460..799G. doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20065909. S2CID 119376131.
^"EarthSky | The Beehive Cluster: A swarm of 1,000 stars". earthsky.org. 2022-03-11. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
^"First Planets Found Around Sun-Like Stars in a Cluster". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
^ Malavolta, L.; et al. (2016). "The GAPS programme with HARPS-N at TNG". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 588: A118. arXiv:1602.00009. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201527933. S2CID 119207951. Retrieved 2016-04-19.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beehive Cluster.
M44 Photo detail Dark Atmospheres
Messier 44, SEDS Messier pages
NightSkyInfo.com – M44, the Beehive Cluster
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day: M44: A Beehive of Stars (3 August 1998)
The Beehive Cluster on WikiSky: DSS2, SDSS, GALEX, IRAS, Hydrogen α, X-Ray, Astrophoto, Sky Map, Articles and images
beehive, cluster, this, article, about, other, uses, beehive, also, known, praesepe, latin, manger, crib, 2632, open, cluster, constellation, cancer, nearest, open, clusters, earth, contains, larger, population, stars, than, other, nearby, bright, open, cluste. This article is about the Beehive Cluster For other uses see Beehive The Beehive Cluster also known as Praesepe Latin for manger or crib M44 NGC 2632 or Cr 189 is an open cluster in the constellation Cancer One of the nearest open clusters to Earth it contains a larger population of stars than other nearby bright open clusters holding around 1 000 stars Under dark skies the Beehive Cluster looks like a small nebulous object to the naked eye and has been known since ancient times Classical astronomer Ptolemy described it as a nebulous mass in the breast of Cancer It was among the first objects that Galileo studied with his telescope 3 Messier 44 Beehive ClusterThe Beehive Cluster in Cancer north is to the right Observation data J2000 0 epoch Right ascension08h 40 4mDeclination19 59 Distance610 ly 1 187 pc Apparent magnitude V 3 7 2 Apparent dimensions V 95 Physical characteristicsMass 500 600 M Estimated age 600 700 million yearsOther designationsPraesepe M44 NGC 2632 Cr 189AssociationsConstellationCancerSee also Open cluster List of open clustersMap showing the location of M44 in the constellation of Cancer Age and proper motion coincide with those of the Hyades suggesting they may share similar origins 4 5 Both clusters also contain red giants and white dwarfs which represent later stages of stellar evolution along with many main sequence stars Distance to M44 is often cited to be between 160 and 187 parsecs 520 610 light years 6 7 8 but the revised Hipparcos parallaxes 2009 for Praesepe members and the latest infrared color magnitude diagram favors an analogous distance of 182 pc 9 10 There are better age estimates of around 600 million years 5 7 11 compared to about 625 million years for the Hyades 12 The diameter of the bright inner cluster core is about 7 0 parsecs 23 light years 11 At 1 5 across the cluster easily fits within the field of view of binoculars or low powered small telescopes Regulus Castor and Pollux are guide stars Contents 1 History 2 Morphology and composition 3 Planets 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksHistory EditIn 1609 Galileo first telescopically observed the Beehive and was able to resolve it into 40 stars Charles Messier added it to his famous catalog in 1769 after precisely measuring its position in the sky Along with the Orion Nebula and the Pleiades cluster Messier s inclusion of the Beehive has been noted as curious as most of Messier s objects were much fainter and more easily confused with comets Another possibility is that Messier simply wanted to have a larger catalog than his scientific rival Lacaille whose 1755 catalog contained 42 objects and so he added some well known bright objects to boost his list 13 Wilhelm Schur as director of the Gottingen Observatory drew a map of the cluster in 1894 Wilhelm Schur s map of the Beehive Cluster in 1894Ancient Greeks and Romans saw this object as a manger from which two donkeys the adjacent stars Asellus Borealis and Asellus Australis are eating these are the donkeys that Dionysos and Silenus rode into battle against the Titans 14 Hipparchus c 130 BC refers to the cluster as Nephelion Little Cloud in his star catalog 15 Claudius Ptolemy s Almagest includes the Beehive Cluster as one of seven nebulae four of which are real 16 describing it as The Nebulous Mass in the Breast of Cancer 17 Aratus c 260 270 BC calls the cluster Achlus or Little Mist in his poem Phainomena 15 This perceived nebulous object is in the Ghost Gui Xiu the 23rd lunar mansion of ancient Chinese astrology Ancient Chinese skywatchers saw this as a ghost or demon riding in a carriage and likened its appearance to a cloud of pollen blown from willow catkins It was also known by the somewhat less romantic name of Jishi qi 積屍氣 also transliterated Tseih She Ke the Exhalation of Piled up Corpses 15 It is also known simply as Jishi 積屍 cumulative corpses Morphology and composition EditLike many star clusters of all kinds Praesepe has experienced mass segregation 7 11 18 This means that bright massive stars are concentrated in the cluster s core while dimmer and less massive stars populate its halo sometimes called the corona The cluster s core radius is estimated at 3 5 parsecs 11 4 light years its half mass radius is about 3 9 parsecs 12 7 light years and its tidal radius is about 12 parsecs 39 light years 7 11 However the tidal radius also includes many stars that are merely passing through and not bona fide cluster members Widefield image of the Beehive Cluster Altogether the cluster contains at least 1000 gravitationally bound stars for a total mass of about 500 600 Solar masses 7 11 A recent survey counts 1010 high probability members of which 68 are M dwarfs 30 are Sun like stars of spectral classes F G and K and about 2 are bright stars of spectral class A 7 Also present are five giant stars four of which have spectral class K0 III and the fifth G0 III 4 7 19 So far eleven white dwarfs have been identified representing the final evolutionary phase of the cluster s most massive stars which originally belonged to spectral type B 5 Brown dwarfs however are extremely rare in this cluster 20 probably because they have been lost by tidal stripping from the halo 7 The cluster has a visual brightness of magnitude 3 7 Its brightest stars are blue white and of magnitude 6 to 6 5 42 Cancri is a confirmed member Photo of comet C 2001 Q4 NEAT next to Messier 44Planets EditIn September 2012 two planets which orbit separate stars were discovered in the Beehive Cluster The finding was significant for being the first planets detected orbiting stars like Earth s Sun that were situated in stellar clusters Planets had previously been detected in such clusters but not orbiting stars like the Sun The planets have been designated Pr0201 b and Pr0211 b The b at the end of their names indicates that the bodies are planets The discoveries are what have been termed Hot Jupiters massive gas giants that unlike the planet Jupiter orbit very close to their parent stars Since the discovery of both Hot jupiters at least four more planets had been discovered by the kepler space telescope 21 The announcement describing the planetary finds written by Sam Quinn as the lead author was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters Quinn s team worked with David Latham of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics utilizing the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory s Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory 22 In 2016 additional observations concluded that in the Pr0211 system there are actually two planets the second one being Pr0211 c 23 See also EditList of Messier objects Cancer Chinese astronomy List of open clusters Messier object New General Catalogue Open cluster family Open cluster remnantReferences Edit NGC 2632 sim id Retrieved 2020 06 11 Messier 44 SEDS Retrieved 2009 12 10 Messier 44 Observations and Descriptions a b Klein Wassink W J 1927 The proper motion and the distance of the Praesepe cluster Publications of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory Groningen 41 1 48 Bibcode 1927PGro 41 1K a b c Dobbie PD Napiwotzki R Burleigh MR et al 2006 New Praesepe white dwarfs and the initial mass final mass relation Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 369 1 383 389 arXiv astro ph 0603314 Bibcode 2006MNRAS 369 383D doi 10 1111 j 1365 2966 2006 10311 x S2CID 17914736 Pinfield DJ Dobbie PD Jameson F Steele IA et al 2003 Brown dwarfs and low mass stars in the Pleiades and Praesepe Membership and binarity Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 342 4 1241 1259 arXiv astro ph 0303600 Bibcode 2003MNRAS 342 1241P doi 10 1046 j 1365 8711 2003 06630 x S2CID 285922 a b c d e f g h Kraus AL Hillenbrand LA 2007 The stellar populations of Praesepe and Coma Berenices Astronomical Journal 134 6 2340 2352 arXiv 0708 2719 Bibcode 2007AJ 134 2340K doi 10 1086 522831 S2CID 15945900 WEBDA van Leeuwen F Parallaxes and proper motions for 20 open clusters as based on the new Hipparcos catalogue A amp A 2009 Majaess D Turner D Lane D Krajci T Deep Infrared ZAMS Fits to Benchmark Open Clusters Hosting delta Scuti Stars Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers 2011 a b c d e Adams JD Stauffer JR Skrutskie MF et al 2002 Structure of the Praesepe Star Cluster Astronomical Journal 124 3 1570 1584 Bibcode 2002AJ 124 1570A doi 10 1086 342016 Perryman M Brown A Lebreton Y Gomez A Turon C Cayrel de Strobel G et al 1998 The Hyades Distance structure dynamics and age Astronomy amp Astrophysics 331 81 120 arXiv astro ph 9707253 Bibcode 1998A amp A 331 81P Frommert Hartmut 1998 Messier Questions amp Answers SEDS Archived from the original on 9 February 2005 Retrieved 2005 03 01 M44 SEDS Retrieved 2005 02 06 a b c Allen Richard Hinckley 1889 Star Names p 112 The Discovery of the Deep Sky Objects Messier Object 44 SEDS Retrieved 2013 09 28 Portegies Zwart SF McMillan SL Hut P Makino J 2001 Star cluster ecology IV Dissection of an open star cluster Photometry Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 321 2 199 226 arXiv astro ph 0005248 Bibcode 2001MNRAS 321 199P doi 10 1046 j 1365 8711 2001 03976 x S2CID 18396503 Abt HA Willmarth DW 1999 Binaries in the Praesepe and Coma star clusters and their implications for binary evolution Astrophysical Journal 521 2 682 690 Bibcode 1999ApJ 521 682A doi 10 1086 307569 S2CID 119772785 Gonzalez Garcia BM Zapatero Osorio MR Bejar VJS Bihain G et al 2006 A search for substellar members in the Praesepe and Sigma Orionis clusters Astronomy amp Astrophysics 460 3 799 810 arXiv astro ph 0609283 Bibcode 2006A amp A 460 799G doi 10 1051 0004 6361 20065909 S2CID 119376131 EarthSky The Beehive Cluster A swarm of 1 000 stars earthsky org 2022 03 11 Retrieved 2022 05 18 First Planets Found Around Sun Like Stars in a Cluster Jet Propulsion Laboratory Retrieved September 14 2012 Malavolta L et al 2016 The GAPS programme with HARPS N at TNG Astronomy amp Astrophysics 588 A118 arXiv 1602 00009 doi 10 1051 0004 6361 201527933 S2CID 119207951 Retrieved 2016 04 19 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Beehive Cluster M44 Photo detail Dark Atmospheres Messier 44 SEDS Messier pages NightSkyInfo com M44 the Beehive Cluster NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day M44 A Beehive of Stars 3 August 1998 The Beehive Cluster on WikiSky DSS2 SDSS GALEX IRAS Hydrogen a X Ray Astrophoto Sky Map Articles and images Praesepe M44 at Constellation Guide Portals Astronomy Stars Outer space Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Beehive Cluster amp oldid 1115687867, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
