Space Saturday XVII
Once again, Space Saturday comes a day late. My sister’s graduation is a pretty good excuse I think! Today’s Space Saturday brings to you M45: The Pleiades.
Credit: Chuck’s Astrophotography (source)
The Pleides, or Seven Sisters (also called Subaru in Japan - ever notice the car logo?), is an open star cluster in the constellation Taurus and is one of the more recognizable clusters in the northern night sky. The grouping of stars sits at a distance of about 440 light years from us, is 13 light years across, and contains around 500 stars. One of the things that makes this cluster so beautiful is its reflection nebula. The reflection nebula is formed by the white/blue light from the hot, young stars reflecting of dust particles.
Check out my Space Saturday Archive for other astronomy photographs.
Resources:
Gorgeous NASA photograph of M45
APOD: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Wikipedia: The Pleiades Star Cluster
Chuck’s Astrophotography: The Pleiades in Taurus
SEDS: M 45
Wikipedia Image: Reflection nebula near Merope (one of the stars in the Pleiades)
heh, I have a subaru. I never noticed that! very interesting.
I love your blog, Lots of cool information.
Cindy
Thank you
since I love looking up and out of this planet’s atmosphere, you’ve hooked me with your SPace Saturday series… which probably means I’ll check out other posts and there’s a high probability I’ll like them too… that makes us both blogmad winners, dudnit?
BlogMad brought me here. Happy BlogMad Day!
Hehe, thanks candoor!
I certainly hope you will enjoy!
Yay for BlogMad!