NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

Seven Dusty Sisters

Hurtling through a cosmic dust cloud a mere 400 light-years away, the lovely Pleiades [ http://www.naic.edu…] or Seven Sisters star cluster is well-known in astronomical images for its striking blue reflection nebulae [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. At visible wavelengths, the starlight is scattered and reflected by the dust, but in this portrait [ http://www.spitzer.…index.shtml ] in infrared light [ http://coolcosmos.i…] by the Spitzer Space Telescope, the dust itself glows. The false color image spans about 1 degree or seven light-years at the distance of the Pleiades, with the densest regions of the dust cloud shown in yellow and red hues. Exploring this [ http://www.pleiade.…] young, nearby cluster, the Spitzer data have revealed many cool, low mass stars, brown dwarfs [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] or failed stars, and possible planetary debris disks. Want to see the Pleiades tonight? Look near [ http://skytonight.c…VenusAndPleiades.htm l ] Venus, the brilliant evening star in the west just after sunset.

NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov…], JPL-Caltech [ http://ssc.spitzer.…], J. Stauffer (SSC [ http://ssc.spitzer.…], Caltech)

Venus

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Stennis Space Center (SSC)

Venus

Spitzer Space Telescope

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap070413