Messier 79

RA:

05:24:11.09

Dec:

-24:31:29.0

Distance from Sun:

42.1 kly

Distance from Galactic Center:

61.3 kly

Apparent Diameter:

9.6 arc min

Brightness:

7.73 mag vis

Radial Velocity:

+205.8 +/- 0.4 km/s

Diameter:

107 ly

Abs. Mag:

-7.86 Mag vis

In 2003, it was found that this cluster is probably a former member of the Canis Major Dwarf galaxy discovered that year. More recent research has revealed that this object probably doesn't exist, and is just a chance density wave in the Galactic disk; M79 and the other globulars previously thought to be associated with it have their probable origin in another progenitor satellite galaxy. That object has merged with the Milky Way about 9 billion years ago. This progenitor satellite was found in 2018 from the analysis of astrometrical data acquired by the Gaia satellite, and was named "Gaia Sausage" or "Gaia Enceladus". For M79, newer analysis (2022) has shown that its origin may be from Gaia Enceladus only with a probability of about 40%, and it may come from another progenitor called "Helmi" instead, with a probability of about 59% (Callingham et.al. 2022).

• More on M 79 (SEDS Messier Database)
• Catalog of Variable Stars in M79 (Christine Clement) -- 33 variables known, + 1 former suspect, + 1 pulsar (2018/2024)
• Holger Baumgardt's Fundamental Data for M79 (NGC 1904)

• Thomas M. Callingham, Marius Cautun, Alis J. Deason, Carlos S. Frenk, Robert J. J. Grand, and Federico Marinacci, 2022. The chemo-dynamical groups of Galactic globular clusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 513, Issue 3, pp. 4107-4129 (July 2022). [ADS: 2022MNRAS.513.4107C] -- [Preprint: arXiv:2202.00591 [astro-ph.GA].