'The Pleiades star
cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, is swathed in a wispy veil in
this image from the Spitzer Space Telescope.
Sitting
more than 400 light-years from Earth towards the constellation Taurus, the
Pleiades star cluster formed some 100
million years making it a mere cosmic toddler when compared the our own Sun’s five
billion-year history.
The 19th
century poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described the stars as “glittering like a
swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.” The two brightest stars are
known as Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology, with seven others -- or
daughters -- named Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and
Asterope.
Here, the
infrared-scanning Spitzer Space Telescope focuses on that “tangled silver braid,”
revealing a web-like network of filaments of interstellar dust, which appear to
be painted in yellow, green and red hues depending on wavelengths.
Spitzer’s
observations revealed never-before seen brown dwarf stars and disks of
planetary debris not seen in this view. The “parent” star Atlas appears at
bottom, with six of the “sisters” in frame at the top.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ J. Stauffer
(Spitzer Science Center, Caltech)
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