NGC 2451 is an
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
Puppis constellation, probably discovered by
Giovanni Battista Hodierna before 1654 and
John Herschel
Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...
in 1835.
In 1994, it was postulated that this was actually two open clusters that lie along the same line of sight. This was confirmed in 1996. The respective clusters are labeled ''NGC 2451 A'' and ''NGC 2451 B'', and they are located at distances of 600 and 1,200
light-year
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...
s, respectively.
References
External links
*
NGC 2451 @ SEDS NGC objects pages*
2451
Open clusters
Puppis
{{star-cluster-stub