Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  16 Tau  ·  17 Tau  ·  18 Tau  ·  19 q Tau  ·  20 Tau  ·  21 Tau  ·  22 Tau  ·  23 Tau  ·  24 Tau  ·  25 eta Tau  ·  26 Tau  ·  27 Tau  ·  28 Tau  ·  Alcyone  ·  Asterope  ·  Atlas  ·  Barnard's Merope Nebula  ·  Celaeno  ·  Electra  ·  IC 349  ·  LBN 770  ·  LBN 771  ·  LBN 772  ·  M 45  ·  Maia  ·  Maia Nebula  ·  Merope  ·  Merope Nebula  ·  NGC 1432  ·  NGC 1435  ·  And 13 more.
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The Pleiades, Jared Willson
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The Pleiades

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The Pleiades, Jared Willson
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The Pleiades

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Description

M45, The Pleiades Star Cluster
Normally, when you see an open cluster such as the Pleiades surrounded by a blue reflection nebula you assume that you are looking at extremely young stars that have not yet dispersed the cloud of gas and dust from which they were formed. That is not the case with the Pleiades. Based on fitting the stars in the cluster to HR diagrams, stellar evolution models suggest the Pleiades are somewhere between 75 and 150 million years old, for longer than the dust and gas from their original formation would last. The cluster just happens to be moving through a particular dusty section of the interstellar medium, resulting in the bright reflection nebula. The cluster is thought to contain at least 1,000 stars with a combined mass of roughly 800 suns.

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The Pleiades, Jared Willson