47 Tucanae

cluster

47 Tucanae (NGC 104) — the second-brightest globular cluster, ~13,000 light-years away in the far-southern sky, with a dense, bright core of hundreds of thousands of ancient stars and many millisecond pulsars.

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Science

Classification

Type: Globular star cluster
Distance: ~13,000 light-years
Diameter: ~120 light-years
Age: ~13 billion years
Notable: Hosts many millisecond pulsars

How we know

Note: A real ESO/VISTA image at the cluster's real position; ~120 ly across, shown enlarged as a marker, as seen from Earth.

Discovery & history

Name: '47 Tucanae' — the 47th entry for the constellation Tucana in Bode's catalogue; once mistaken for a single star.

Recorded by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille from the Cape of Good Hope in 1751-52; resolved into stars by James Dunlop in 1826.

Images

47 Tucanae — the second-brightest globular cluster (ESO/VISTA) — ESO / M.-R. Cioni / VISTA (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons

Images from open archives · credit shown per image