M73

four stars by chance · in Aquarius

1,020 to 2,240 light-years away

Four stars that look like a tiny cluster: Messier listed them in 1780 as three or four small stars that at first look like a nebula. In 2000 astronomers argued over whether they were the remains of an old cluster; spectra in 2002 showed they are not, and Gaia now puts them at very different distances.

• its four stars: about 1,020, 1,230, 2,140 and 2,240 light-years away (Gaia)
• they move at different speeds and in different directions: not a cluster

kind

star

catalogue

M73 · NGC 6994

size

1,220 light-years across