It is classified as an irregular variable star, with an apparent magnitude varying from 4.51 to 4.65 with a period of about 20 days. Crotus, much like Chiron, was a skilled musician and hunter. It lies at a distance of 35,500 light years. Ascella also has a dim companion 75 arc seconds away. Stellar corpses in this image also emit X-rays as either neutron stars or black holes in binary systems. The clusters small central region has one of the highest star densities in the Milky Way. The Mythology That Defines Each One of the 12 Zodiac Signs - Astrology.com Even though Chiron was skilled in medicine, he also could not heal himself, putting him in great pain. Astronomers recently discovered that all the stars in Terzan 7 were born at around the same time, and are about eight billion years old. Peering through the thick dust clouds of our galaxys central parts (the bulge) with an amazing amount of detail, a team of astronomers has revealed an unusual mix of stars in the stellar grouping known as Terzan 5. The stars traditional name, Kaus Australis, comes from the Arabic word for bow (qaws) and the Latin word for southern (australis). Together with the stars Delta (Kaus Media) and Lambda Sagittarii (Kaus Borealis), Epsilon Sagittarii represents the archers bow. Sagittarius is most often associated with Crotus, the son of Pan (the goat-god) and Eupheme (the Muses' nurse). It goes by many different names: Omega Nebula, Horseshoe Nebula, Lobster Nebula, Swan Nebula, Checkmark Nebula, and Sharpless 45. The signs are: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. Mythology of the constellation Sagittarius. It is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and headed for a collision with our galaxy. NGC 6544, based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA). Messier 23 is an open star cluster, discovered by Charles Messier in June 1764. It was discovered by Italian astronomer Giovanni Battista Hodierna in 1654. Another Greek myth connects Sagittarius with Crotus, the son of Pan, the goat-god, and Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses. Sagittarius is symbolized by the centaur, half-human and half-horse beings in Greek mythology. The star is classified as a semiregular variable of the SRc type. The constellation name Sagittarius is pronounced /sdtris/. The sign is represented by the toxophilite or a centaur, which is half human and half pony. Edwin Hubble identified 15 variable stars in Barnards Galaxy, 11 of which were Cepheids, luminous variable stars that have a strong relationship between luminosity and pulsation period, which makes them excellent standard candles (objects with a known luminosity) for determining galactic and extragalactic distance scales. The soft gamma repeater SGR 1806-20 is a magnetar, a neutron star with an exceptionally strong magnetic field, more than 1015 gauss (1011 tesla) in intensity , or 1-2 quadrillion (short scale) times that of the Earth. Lambda Sagittarii is an orange giant star, belonging to the spectral class K1+IIIb, with an apparent magnitude of 2.82. The first magnetar to be identified, in 2013, was SGR J17452900 or PSR J1745-2900, the soft gamma repeater orbiting a black hole in Sagittarius A*. He later included it in his catalogue. Barnard, who discovered it in 1881 using a six-inch refractor telescope. Pi Sagittarii is also sometimes known as Albaldah, from the Arabic blda, which means the town. Egyptian astronomer Al Achsasi al Mouakket designated it Nir al Beldat in his star catalogue Calendarium in the mid-17th century. NGC 6569 is another globular cluster visible in the vicinity of Gamma-2 Sagittarii, about 2 degrees south of the star. The supernova remnant Sagittarius A East is about 25 light years wide and appears to have originated in an event that occurred between 35,000 and 100,000 years ago. Sagittarius is an astrological sign transitted by the Sun from approximately November 23rd to December 22nd. The stars and clusters in the Sagittarius Star Cloud are part of the Sagittarius or Sagittarius-Carina spiral arms of the Milky Way. The cluster has an apparent magnitude of 6.8 and lies at a distance of 28,400 light years from Earth. It is the densest concentration of stars that can be seen using binoculars; about a thousand stars are visible within a single field of view. Omega Sagittarii is a G-type subgiant marking the northeast corner of the Terebellum, about 78 light years distant from Earth. It seems that this cluster has already been kidnapped from its former home and now is part of our own galaxy. Image: NASA/CXC/MIT/F.K.Baganoff et al. It does not really have the structure of a spiral. Myths of the Constellations Greek Gods & Goddesses The two-lobed nebula surrounds the central hot white dwarf that produces a hot wind with a speed of 300 km/s. The nebula was discovered by Truman Safford on 28 August, 1867. A Hubble Space Telescope photo of the planetary nebula Henize 3-1475. Terzan 7 has a considerable number of blue stragglers and the clusters centre has a particularly high concentration of these stars. Edward Emerson Barnard catalogued it as IC 4690 in August 1905. Messier 28 is a globular cluster located near Lambda Sagittarii (Kaus Borealis). The planetary nebula in the Sagittarius Cluster, designated GJJC1 is believed to be only 6,000 years old and has a blue star at the centre. Terzan 5 has a mass of about 2 million solar masses and bolometric luminosity 800,000 times that of the Sun. Image: Smithsonian Institution, NASA/CXC/UMass Amherst/Q.D.Wang et al. Why Chiron gets credit as the figure in Sagittarius mythology is a bit of a mystery. At the equator, the pulsar is spinning at a speed of more than 70,000 km/s, or about 24% of the speed of light. Messier 54 is a dense globular cluster with an apparent magnitude of 8.37, approximately 87,400 light years distant and about 150 light years across. Rho Sagittarii is a binary star with a subgiant belonging to the spectral class F0 as the primary component and a K0 type giant as the companion, separated by 0.46 from the primary. The cluster has a highly concentrated core, with the majority of M75s stars located in a large nucleus. The Pistol Star is one of the most luminous stars known. Being half human aligned the centaur with intellect and civility, while the horse end symbolized. Sagittarius is the ninth astrological sign of the zodiac. Sagittarius: The Archer Myth based on the original Greek legend Once upon a time in the ancient lands of Greece, long before horses galloped under the weight of humans, there lived the great Chiron, the centaur. Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it? The cluster was discovered by Charles Messier in 1778. It has an apparent magnitude of 12.87. Most of the centaurs were regarded in myth as bestial--they were, after all, half horse. Messier 69 is a globular cluster. NGC 6624, based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA). Once enough material was ejected, the stars luminous core was exposed and it began to produce ultraviolet radiation, exciting the surrounding gas to varying degrees and causing it to radiate in an attractive array of colours. Also prominent in the upper left of this new image is a striking bubble-shaped nebula. Chiron was immortal, so he could not die. It has an apparent magnitude of 3.32. The closest complex of regions in W31 is formed by G10.2-0.3 and G10.6-0.4. Image: NASA, ESA, STScI, and G. Piotto (Universit degli Studi di Padova), and E. Noyola (Max Planck Institut fr extraterrestrische Physik). The companion can be found 3.6 arc seconds from the primary star. Sometimes it is also called the Sagittarius I Dwarf or Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal. Most sources identify Sagittarius as Chiron, the son of the Titan Cronus, according to Globe at Night. The third star in the system is an O-type star with an apparent magnitude of 15.36. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.1 and is approximately 10,600 light years distant. It's not a mindless ramble for these folks, either. The huge number of stars that light up this region dramatically emphasise the blackness of dark clouds like Barnard 86, which appears at the centre of this new picture from the Wide Field Imager, an instrument mounted on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory in Chile. This vast ball of ancient stars is located at a distance of about 17,000 light-years from Earth. It has an apparent size of 5.2 by 5.2. Located 25,000 light years from Earth, the cluster lies only about 100 light years from the Galactic centre. M22 was originally discovered by the German amateur astronomer Johann Abraham Ihle in 1665. Sagittarius is often misinterpreted just like Virgo is. The myth of centaurs: summary. Terzan 7 is the brightest of the six globulars discovered by Agop Terzan in 1968. NGC 6553 is a globular cluster found just over a degree to the southeast of the Lagoon Nebula. It is classified as a UV Ceti-type flare star, one undergoing sudden dramatic increases in brightness for a few minutes. Sakurais Object is a so-called born again star, one that was originally a white dwarf but swelled into a red giant as a result of a late thermal pulse and is expected to evolve back into a white dwarf. The archer's best-known identity was that of a centaur, a beast with the upper body of a man and the lower body, hind legs, and tail of a horse. Image: NASA, ESA, and A. Sarajedini (University of Florida) Acknowledgement: Gilles Chapdelaine. Image: ESO/F. Emerson/VISTA. Alpha Sagittarii is a blue dwarf belonging to the spectral class B8V. It will make its closest approach to the Sun in about 150,000 years, when it comes within 6.13 light years of our solar system. Sag DEGs ellipse is already extended around our galaxy, and the main cluster will pass through the galactic disc of the Milky Way in the next million years. Realising Ixion's intentions, Zeus sent a cloud, disguised as Hera, to trick him. The most well-known myth is that of Chiron, the centaur and revered teacher of many Greek heroes. The complex of star forming regions is obscured by interstellar dust, but it can be observed in radio, infrared and X-ray bands. Image: ESA/Hubble & NASA. Observations in 2009 revealed that the cluster contains at least two generations of stars, one with an estimated age of 12 billion years and another about 4.5 billion years old. At the centre of the Lagoon Nebula, there is a structure known as the Hourglass Nebula (not the same object as the famous Hourglass Nebula, which is located in the constellation Musca). The nebulas appearance earned it the nickname Eye of Sauron Nebula. Also catalogued as ESO 456-67, the nebula was discovered by Rudolph Minkowski in 1946. The Ancient Gods of Greek Myth The psychological branch of Astrology uses the concept of primeval images, or ' archetypes ' constellated at the very roots of a person's being. The star is a relatively young one, with an estimated age of less than a billion years. Ancient Greeks on the other hand had tremendous respect for horses. Located in the western part of Sagittarius, the cluster is surprisingly easy to see in binoculars and telescopes thanks to it being highly condensed in the center. Collisions between the clusters themselves and cooler molecular clouds of gas contribute to the diffuse X-rays seen in this image. His name was Crotus, and he was put into the sky by the god Zeus so that everyone could see how archery worked. In Babylonian mythology, Sagittarius is associated with the centaur-like god Nergal, and depicted with two heads one human and one panther and also wings, and the stinger of a scorpion positioned above a horses tail. The brightest stars in the cluster are 16th magnitude. Understanding the Sagittarius star sign through this half-human/half-horse imagery is once again a matter of perception. The star has a luminosity 3,300 times that of the Sun and about seven solar masses. Whether you think Sagittarius is based on Chiron or Crotus doesn't really matter, I suppose. The Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular Galaxy (Sag DIG) is a dwarf galaxy located in Sagittarius, approximately 3.39 million light years from the solar system. Image: U Harvard. Messier included it in his catalogue in 1764. Messier 22, image: Wikimedia Commons/Hewholooks (CC BY-SA 3.0). As a beloved archer, you will join the ranks of others who chased their dreams and adventures, such as Samuel L. Jackson, Taylor Swift, and Brad Pitt. It was discovered by William Herschel on June 24, 1784. The numbers 1806-20 indicate its position in the sky (right ascension and declination). It is approximately 29,700 light years distant from Earth. Sagittarius (constellation) - Wikipedia VX Sagittarii, currently (as of 2017) one of the five largest known stars in the Milky Way, is an evolved red supergiant or hypergiant (M4eIa M10eIa) with a radius between 1,350 and 1,940 times that of the Sun and a mass 12 times solar. Mythology of the constellation Sagittarius - Heavens-Above The white dwarf emits sufficient ultraviolet radiation to illuminate the gas it has expelled, which can just be seen in this image as the ring of red material. It is not fully understood how planetary nebulae form such a wide variety of shapes and structures; some appear to be spherical, some elliptical, others shoot material in waves from their polar regions, some look like hourglasses or figures of eight, and others resemble large, messy stellar explosions to name but a few. This image from the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESOs La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows the bright star cluster NGC 6520 and its neighbour, the strangely shaped dark cloud Barnard 86. It has a half-mass diameter of 102 and linear radius of 2.7 light years. The end of this star may only last mere moments on a cosmological timescale, but this stars demise is still quite lengthy by our standards, lasting tens of thousands of years! Red Spider Nebula (NGC 6537), image: Judy Schmidt (CC BY 2.0). The cluster was discovered by William Herschel on May 24, 1784. The Arches Cluster is the densest open cluster known in the Milky Way. Most stories come to the conclusion that the myth of the constellation Sagittarius is the tale of the centaur Chiron. Satyrs did.) Terzan 5 is a globular cluster about 18,800 light years away in the Milky Way bulge. The star is probably a B or O type main sequence dwarf that has accreted much of the primary stars mass. The signal was received by SETI researcher Dr. Jerry R. Ehman on August 15, 1977 at the Ohio State University. Its symbol is . The estimated age of the cluster is more than 12 billion years, making NGC 6522 one of the oldest known clusters in the Milky Way. Ruprecht 147, also catalogued as NGC 6774, is a dispersed open cluster in Sagittarius. It is the most highly magnetized object ever discovered. The nebula lies at a distance of 6,000 light years from Earth and has an oval diameter of 15 to 22 arcseconds. NGC 6589 is a reflection nebula that occupies an area of 5.0 by 3.0 in apparent size. Both creatures were very similar to one another and the general meaning of the Sagittarius myth remains the same, regardless of whether you think its representative had two legs or four. The Quintuplet Cluster contains more Wolf-Rayet stars than any other cluster known and several notable luminous blue variables, including the Pistol Star, V4650 Sagittarii and the runaway star V4998 Sagittarii. Messier 70 offers a special case because it has undergone what is known as a core collapse. The stars agony has culminated in a wonderful planetary nebula known as NGC 6565, a cloud of gas that was ejected from the star after strong stellar winds pushed the stars outer layers away into space. The constellations Sagittarius and Centaurus are both supposed to represent a centaur, a creature with the upper torso of a man and the body and legs of a horse . The clusters age and low levels of nickel found in it led astronomers to believe that it may have originated in the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (Sag DEG). It cannot be seen in visual bands as a result of interstellar extinction, but was discovered in infrared observations. Messier 75 is a globular star cluster about 67,500 light years from Earth. Delta Sagittarii is a multiple star system approximately 306 light years distant in the constellation Sagittarius. SGR 1806-20 was identified as a soft gamma repeater in 1979. NGC 6558 is a globular cluster that can be seen 1.5 degrees to the south-southeast of Gamma-2 Sagittarii. The symbol of the Sagittarius is the centaur, a half-man and half-horse being from Greek mythology, or more generally, the archeras the centaur is typically . Sagittarius is usually depicted as a centaur holding a bow and arrow. It is a relatively young cluster, only 4.6 million years old, and it contains at least 57 stars. It lies at an approximate distance of 50,000 light years from Earth. This image was taken using the FORS instrument, mounted on ESOs Very Large Telescope. In order to be put out of his misery, Chiron offered to be killed in place of Prometheus, who was being punished by the other gods for giving humans fire. Chiron was a kind, talented, and gentle creature. People born under the Zodiac sign of Sagittarius, from November 22 to December 21, are said to be magnetic, passionate, adventurous, and intense, according to Allure perfect traits, in fact, to describe the archer figure that represents them. The cluster has a diameter of 10 arc minutes and an apparent magnitude of 4.6. Sagittarius A consists of the supernova remnant Sagittarius A East, the spiral structure Sagittarius A West, and a bright radio source located at the centre of the spiral, Sagittarius A*. They both were known to hunt with a bow and arrow (though this is a bit misleading as centaurs did not traditionally use a bow and arrow. Sagittarius, the centaur, is the ninth sign in the Zodiac and represents those born between Nov. 22 and Dec. 21. About a fifth of the more than 150 globular clusters in the Milky Way have undergone a core collapse. Together these are providing a vast legacy of publicly available data for the global astronomical community. Chiron and Achilles. The constellation of Sagittarius (which literally means "archer" in Latin, per Britannica) is said to be a centaur or satyr holding a bow and arrow, according to Gods and Monsters. Ross 154 is a red dwarf only 9.68 light years away from the solar system. Return from Sagittarius Myth to the Constellation Myths page. The Greek Origin of Zodiac Signs in Astrology - GreekReporter.com It has an estimated age of about 220 million years. It is a hydrogen fusing dwarf star that belongs to the spectral type B2.5 V. It has an apparent magnitude of 2.1. The nebula was discovered by Edward Charles Pickering on July 14, 1880. Hurt 2, or 2MASS-GC02, is a globular cluster discovered only recently, in 2000. The apparent magnitude of Polis A ranges from 3.84 to 3.96. The cluster has an apparent diameter of 7 arc minutes and a visual magnitude of 9.47. Sagittarius contains 15 Messier objects: Messier 8 (M8, NGC 6523, Lagoon Nebula), Messier 17 (M17, NGC 6618 Omega, Swan, Horseshoe or Lobster Nebula), Messier 18 (M18, NGC 6613), Messier 20 (M20, NGC 6514, Trifid Nebula), Messier 21 (M21, NGC 6531), Messier 22 (M22, NGC 6656, Sagittarius Cluster), Messier 23 (M23, NGC 6494), Messier 24 (M24, NGC 6603, Sagittarius Star Cloud), Messier 25 (M25, IC 4725), Messier 28 (M28, NGC 6626), Messier 54 (M54, NGC 6715), Messier 55 (M55, NGC 6809), Messier 69 (M69, NGC 6637), Messier 70 (M70, NGC 6681) and Messier 75 (M75, NGC 6864). The nebulas central star is more than 12,000 times more luminous than the Sun. The constellations symbol is . Although the centaur was most common in Greek mythology . The neighboring constellations are Aquila, Capricornus, Corona Australis, Indus, Microscopium, Ophiuchus, Scutum, Scorpius, Serpens Cauda and Telescopium. Crotus invented archery and lived on Mount Helicon. It can be observed through a small telescope and is a popular deep sky object among amateur astronomers. Mythology And Facts About The Idealistic Sagittarius The birthday of a Sagittarius-born will always fall between November 22nd and December 21st. It is made of clouds of dust and gas that circle Sagittarius A* and fall onto it at exceptionally high velocities, up to 1000 kilometres per second. It is less that 3 million years old, but it has shed a lot of its initial mass and is expected to end its life in a supernova or hypernova event in the next few million years. PSR J1748-2446ad was discovered on 10 November, 2004. During this time the black hole flared up in X-ray intensity half a dozen or more times. The nebula was discovered by Edward Charles Pickering on July 15, 1882. The brightest stars in the cluster are 16th magnitude. It has a radius of 0.95 arc minutes. NGC 6578 is a planetary nebula occupying an area of 8 arc seconds. Alpha Sagittarii shares its traditional name, Rukbat, with the star Delta Cassiopeiae (now formally known as Ruchbah). As the stars interact with each other over time, lighter stars tend to pick up speed and migrate out toward the clusters edges, while the heavier stars slow and congregate in orbits toward the centre. The archer is usually identified as the centaur Chiron, though sometimes held to be a similar figure known as Crotus, a satyr. The nebula is in fact a combination of an emission nebula (the lower part), a reflection nebula (the upper part) and an open cluster. It is one of the stars that mark the handle of the Teapot asterism. Pabilsag is an unusual centaur-like creature who fires arrows. (Flare stars are typically dim red dwarfs or less massive brown dwarfs.). Although centaurs could be male and female, the male ones came to be associated with lust: these part-human creatures seemed to be jealous of the fully human women they encountered and wanted to carry them off at almost every opportunity. They also look a lot alike. In fact, Chiron was renowned for his gentleness. Each sign is represented by an animal or a mythological figure. Eta Sagittarii is another multiple star system in Sagittarius. The Hourglass Nebula contains several Herbig-Haro objects, small patches of nebulosity indicating that there are newly born stars in the vicinity, and providing direct evidence of star forming activity in the region. It was discovered by William Herschel on May 28, 1786. It is one of the closest stars to the Sun and the nearest star in Sagittarius constellation. The red dwarf MOA-2009-BLG-387L, located almost 20,000 light years away, is host to an orbiting planet with a mass between 1.0 and 6.7 times that of Jupiter. This is the Sagittarius horoscope symbol and the character that represents this zodiac sign. The spiral structure Sagittarius A West appears like a three-arm spiral and is sometimes called the Minispiral. Soft gamma repeaters (SGR) are objects that emit enormous bursts of gamma-rays and X-rays at irregular intervals. NGC 6522 is a globular cluster with an apparent magnitude of 10.5, lying at a distance of 25,100 light years from Earth. The subgiant has an apparent magnitude of 3.93 and is approximately 122 light years distant from the solar system. Some of the brightest stars in Sagittarius Delta, Epsilon, Gamma-2, Lambda, Zeta, Phi, Tau and Sigma Sagittarii form an asterism known as the Teapot. The cluster was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 using his 18.7-inch telescope. At the time of discovery, LBV 1806-20 was thought to be the most luminous and most massive star ever discovered. Box Nebula (NGC 6445), image: NASA and STScI. First discovered by amateur Japanese astronomer, Yukio Sakurai, in 1996, and noted as a nova-like object, Sakurais discovery turned out to be far more interesting than the supernova he initially supposed it to be. Sigma Sagittarii is sometimes also known as Nunki. Sagittarius There are two separate myths connected to the Archer, but both share themes of knowledge, art, and wisdom. 59 Sagittarii (sometimes also known as b Sagittarii) is a K-type bright giant at the southeast corner, about 1,200 light years distant. The stars temperature is also variable and changes from about 2,500 K to 3,500 K, which is unprecedented in a star of this type. The Sagittarius Cluster is located near the galactic bulge, the central group of stars in the Milky Way. It has a radius 11 times solar and is 52 times more luminous than the Sun. With Sagittarius . The primary component in the Eta Sagittarii system is a type M3.5 red giant classified as an irregular variable star: The stars apparent magnitude varies from 3.08 to 3.12. Stars orbit the object at speeds greater than those of any other stars found in the Milky Way. signal, the first and only radio signal ever received that indicated the possibility of extraterrestial intelligence. The most prominent members are Wolf-Rayet stars and O-type supergiants. Individuals born between November 22 and December 21 are known to be Sagittarius individuals. It was first discovered by the French astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil in 1747. This is the stars modern name, which is either Babylonian or Assyrian in origin. The star marks the base of the archers bow. The cluster is one of six globulars discovered by the French-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan in 1968. It has a diameter of about 20 kilometres and its rotation speed at the surface is 30,000 km/h. Image: Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Space Telescope, Martin Pugh; Processing: Robert Gendler. These are pulsating stars belonging to the spectral class A (and occasionally F), usually with a mass of about half the Suns, used as standard candles to measure galactic distances. Sagittarius Constellation - Facts And Features - The Planets This Chandra image of Sgr A* and the surrounding region was made from a 164 hours of observation time over a two-week period. It was originally discovered by Charles Messier in 1764. The Mythology Behind The Sagittarius Constellation Explained This is the most popular version of the Sagittarius story. The sign of Sagittarius is associated with the greek myth of the centaur Chiron, who was the product of a union between a nymph and the god Cronus, who turned into horse to seduce her. Are Sagittarius Truly Cold-Hearted? Debunking the Zodiac Myth in 60 Sagittarius Mythology - CrystalWind.ca | Compendium of Mythology Sagittarius is one of the largest southern constellations. Lambda Sagittarii marks the handle of the Teapot asterism (see below) and points to the famous interstellar cloud, the Lagoon Nebula. Zeta Sagittarii is another binary star in Sagittarius. It is a blue variable star that is about four million times as luminous as our Sun and 120-200 times as massive. Sagittarius B2 is a very large molecular cloud of dust and gas approximately 390 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. Little Gem Nebula, image: Judy Schmidt (CC BY 2.0). Sagittarius Constellation: Facts About the Archer | Space NGC 6822 has an apparent magnitude of 9.3 and is approximately 1.63 million light years distant. The small cluster is only 1 arc minute in diameter. It is located about a degree to the east of Messier 8, the more famous and much larger Lagoon Nebula. The three-letter abbreviation, adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1922, is Sgr. NGC 6440, based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and obtained from the Hubble Legacy Archive, which is a collaboration between the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI/NASA), the Space Telescope European Coordinating Facility (ST-ECF/ESA) and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre (CADC/NRC/CSA).