An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

A bright → open cluster of stars located within 100 light-years of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and one of the three → Galactic center clusters. The Quintuplet cluster was originally noted for its five very bright stars, but it is now known to contain many luminous → massive stars that are not detected at visible wavelengths due to heavy extinction by dust along the line of sight. The cluster is about 4 million years old and had an initial mass over 10⁴ solar masses. The five brighter stars of the cluster are dusty → WC Wolf-Rayet stars. The Quintuplet cluster also contains two → Luminous Blue Variables, the Pistol star and FMM362. The Pistol star has a luminosity 10⁷ times solar making it one of the most luminous stars known. The Quintuplet cluster is more dispersed than the nearby → Arches cluster.

See also: Quintuplet, from the five brightest stars originally observed;
→ cluster.