Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2019 November 7

               Messier 45: The Daughters of Atlas and Pleione
    Image Credit & Copyright: Adam Block, Steward Observatory, University
                                 of Arizona

   Explanation: Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400
   light-years away, the lovely Pleiades or Seven Sisters open star
   cluster is well-known for its striking blue reflection nebulae. It lies
   in the night sky toward the constellation Taurus and the Orion Arm of
   our Milky Way Galaxy. The sister stars and cosmic dust cloud are not
   related though, they just happen to be passing through the same region
   of space. Known since antiquity as a compact grouping of stars, Galileo
   first sketched the star cluster viewed through his telescope with stars
   too faint to be seen by eye. Charles Messier recorded the position of
   the cluster as the 45th entry in his famous catalog of things which are
   not comets. In Greek myth, the Pleiades were seven daughters of the
   astronomical Titan Atlas and sea-nymph Pleione. Their parents names are
   included in the cluster's nine brightest stars. This deep and wide
   telescopic image spans over 20 light-years across the Pleides star
   cluster.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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