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Picture perfect - star cluster Pleiades poses for Spitzer

Posted Apr 15, 2007 at 06:17AM by Rio S. Listed in: Astronomy, NASA, Celestial Bodies Tags: mythology, NASA, Spitzer, constellation, Orion, Zeus
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The star cluster Pleiades taken by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope - Image 1 The star cluster Pleiades taken by the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope - Image 2


If you like star gazing and mythology (like this writer), then you're going to enjoy this one. The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, have been captured in infrared by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Take out your telescopes and binoculars.

If you're not so into the heavenly bodies geekiness, a bit of a primer. In mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Pleione and Atlas, the titan: Alcyone, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta, Celaeno and Asterope. Now, when Atlas was asked to carry the sky on his shoulders, the hunter Orion started pursuing the Pleiades. King of the gods Zeus stepped in and turned them into doves - when that didn't work, he turned them into a cluster of stars.

That cluster of stars is on the constellation Taurus and they're going to be very visible in the night sky, both for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. A couple of days back, they shone just above Venus (it's like they're having a photoshoot). On April 19, the crescent moon will join them and cut in between the Pleiades and Venus. The heavenly show will also be visible to the naked eye on clear nights.

The picture on the left is the one taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The yellow, green and red in the background of the stars is made up of dust. The star cluster travels through cloud that may explain the dust. The parent star Atlas is also visible in the picture along with other stars in blue.

The Spitzer also gathered some data on "brown dwarfs" or failed stars plus some planetary debris. The telescope gives astronomers a better view of cooler, smaller stars and lets them study the faint stars better. (Of course if the star has lower mass and cooler, it is less visible.) According to John Stauffer of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope mission, the Pleiades are perfect for the study of the evolution of stars.

[Via NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] Permalink  |   Email this  |   Linking Blogs   |   Digg It!

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