The "Jewel Box" (alias Kappa Crucis)

This image of part of the Jewel Box, an open star cluster, was acquired by the HiRISE camera, an instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, on December 14, 2005 as part of a calibration sequence while en route to the Red Planet. The Jewel Box was so named by Sir John Herschel because of the variety of star colors in the cluster, including the large red giant star seen near the bottom of this image. The Jewel Box, also called Kappa Crucis, is about 10 MY old, so it is much younger than our Sun which is about 4.600 MY old. This cluster lies about 7.500 LY away, so the light we see today left the stars in the Neolithic Ages of Earth, when farming was first being practiced by our ancestors.

HiRISE can image in three colors, green, red, and near-infrared, so the colors are not exactly as we see them with our eyes.

The Jewel Box cluster lies in the Crux constellation, also called the Southern Cross, the most compact constellation in the sky.