波江圈

2020 March 23 From the Pleiades to the Eridanus Loop Image Credit & Copyright: Hirofumi Okubo Explanation: If you stare at an interesting patch of sky long enough, will it look different? In the case of Pleiades and Hyades star clusters — and surrounding regions — the answer is: yes, pretty different. Long duration camera exposures reveal an intricate network of interwoven interstellar dust and gas that was previously invisible not only to the eye but to lower exposure images. In the featured wide and deep mosaic, the dust stands out spectacularly, with the familiar Pleaides star cluster visible as the blue patch near the top of the image. Blue is the color of the Pleiades’ most massive stars, whose distinctive light reflects from nearby…