The stars of the Pleiades cluster
November 19th 2007 10:02
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Image of the Pleiades cluster Photo: Anglo-Australian Observatory
The stars of the Pleiades cluster, is another example of an easily recognisable constellation that can be clearly seen now in southern hemisphere, To locate the constellation look towards the eastern night sky around 9pm (Eastern Daylight Time).
The Pleiades star system is also known by the names "M45" and "the Seven Sisters," shine brightly in this view from the Cassini spacecraft.
The cluster is comprised of hundreds of stars, a few of which are visible to the unaided eye on Earth as a brilliant grouping in the constellation Taurus.
Some faint nebulous material is seen here. This reflection nebula is dust that reflects the light of the hot, blue stars in the cluster. This picture is literally out of this world
The monochrome view was made by combining 49 clear filter
images of the Pleiades taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera
Located about 400 light-years away in the constellation Taurus (the Bull), the Pleiades is one of the closest star clusters to Earth. Around 100 million years old, Pleiades can be seen with the naked eye, and as such has played a role in many ancient cultures. In recent years, astronomers have believed that the blue stars of Pleiades was just passing through a nearby dust cloud, and that the cluster would only survive for about another 250 million years before being dispersed due to gravitational interactions.
More interestingly, UCLA astronomers Joseph Rhee and Benjamin Zuckerman have issued a statement claiming that rocky terrestrial planets, perhaps like Mars or Venus, appear to be forming or to have recently formed around a star in the Pleiades star cluster.
One of the cluster's stars, known as HD 23514, which has a mass and luminosity a bit greater than those of the sun, is surrounded by an extraordinary number of hot dust particles. The astronomers analyzed emissions from countless microscopic dust particles and concluded that the most likely explanation is that the particles are debris from the violent collision of planets or planetary embryos much like the Stella nursery in the constellation of Orion.
The Hubble telescope recorded this eerie image , wispy tendrils of a dark interstellar cloud being destroyed by the passage of one of the brightest stars in the Pleiades star cluster. Like a flashlight beam shining off the wall of a cave, the star is reflecting light off the surface of pitch black clouds of cold gas laced with dust. These are called reflection nebulae.
Take a trip to the Pleiades cluster
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