Key Points
\nThe Beehive Cluster, also known as Messier 44 (M44), is an open star cluster made up of at least 1,000 stars and is one of the closest and youngest clusters to Earth.The cluster will be visible throughout January in the eastern sky after sunset and before midnight, located in the constellation Cancer between Leo and Gemini.While the Beehive Cluster may appear as a faint, fuzzy patch to the naked eye under dark skies, binoculars or a small telescope provide a clearer view of its stars.<\/p>\n
The night sky is buzzing with celestial activity this month. In addition to the Jupiter opposition<\/a>, the “beehive cluster” will be visible throughout January, according to NASA<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Formally known as Messier 44 or M44<\/a>, the cluster is made up of at least 1,000 stars. Considered an open star cluster, it’s a loosely-bound group of stars that were formed from the same cloud of collapsing gas. The beehive is one of the closest clusters to Earth (approximately 600 light-years away) and one of the youngest (around 600 to 700 million years old).\n<\/p>\n To see the beehive cluster, look to the eastern sky after sunset and before midnight throughout the month. It’ll be located in the constellation Cancer, which lies between Leo to the east and Gemini to the west.\n<\/p>\n First, look for Regulus (the brightest star in the constellation Leo) and the Gemini stars Castor and Pollux. You\u2019ll find the beehive cluster about halfway between Regulus and the Gemini pair. The cluster spans 1.5 degrees of the night sky, which is about the width of three full moons, according to EarthSky.org<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n NASA states that the middle of January is an excellent time to spot the cluster because it\u2019s not too high or too low in the sky. With dark skies, you might be able to spot the beehive with the naked eye, but it’ll look like a faint fuzzy object, like a swarm of bees. Binoculars or a small telescope are a must if you want to get a clearer view. The brightest stars in the cluster have magnitudes of 6 to 6.5 and appear blue-white. Scattered among them are a few yellowish-red giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Key Points The Beehive Cluster, also known as Messier 44 (M44), is an open star cluster made up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-232537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}