Scorpius–Centaurus Association

The Scorpius - Centaurus association, also called Sco - Cen, the star nearest to the sun Association of stars of spectral types O and B. As several other associations of bright stars with a distance of less than 500 pc, it is a part of the Gould Belt.

These star - association is composed of the three subgroups Upper Scorpius, Upper Centaurus Lupus and Lower Centaurus - Crux. Your average distances ranging 380-470 light years.

The age of the sub-groups range between 5 million years ago ( Upper Scorpius ) and about 15 million years ago ( Upper Centaurus Lupus and Lower Centaurus Crux ). Many bright stars in the constellations of Scorpius, Lupus, Centaurus and Crux are members of the Sco - Cen association. Antares, the heaviest star of Upper Scorpius, as well as most of the stars in the Southern Cross, and hundreds of other stars with masses of 15 solar masses down to brown dwarfs belong to Sco - Cen. The total number of stars of each subgroup moves between 1000 and 2000 pieces.

The stars in Sco - Cen have convergent proper motions 00:02 to 12:04 arcsec / year. This suggests that the stars move almost parallel to each other at 20 km / s relative to the sun. The velocity dispersion of the stars in the subgroups is small 1 to 2 km / s, and the group is not gravitationally bound. Over the past 15 million years various supernovae, which left the group a series of expanding gas bubbles, including the Loop I- super-bubble.

Swell

• Star clusters