An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics

The nearest → OB association to the Sun. It contains several hundred stars, mostly → B stars which concentrate in the three subgroups: Upper Scorpius, Upper Centaurus Lupus, and Lower Centaurus Crux. Upper Scorpius is the youngest subgroup, Upper Centaurus Lupus the oldest subgroup of the association.

Isochrone fitting to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram indicates that the star formation occurred some 5-20 Myr ago.
Based on data from the → Hipparcos catalog, it turns out that the Sco-Cen association lies at a distance of 118-145 → parsecs, with the exact value depending on the subgroup of the association.

The Sco-Cen association is probably a member of the → Gould Belt (Preibisch & Mamajek, 2008, astro-ph/0809.0407).

See also: → Scorpius; → Centaurus; → association.