 The
Hubble Space Telescope reveals tiny blobs and wisps in Barnard's
Merope Nebula (IC 349) in the Pleiades. Courtesy NASA and the
Hubble Heritage
Team.
The Hubble
Space Telescope took this closeup view inside one of the most
familiar sights in the Northern Hemisphere's winter skies: the
Pleiades star cluster. The image — made by George Herbig
and Theodore Simon (University of Hawaii) with Hubble's Wide Field
and Planetary Camera 2 on September 19, 1999 — shows tufts
of nebulosity only 30 arcseconds from the Pleiad Merope. (The
star lies just off the top of the frame.) Although the Pleiades
are thought to be perhaps only 80 million years old, the gas and
dust enveloping them are not the remnants their birth. The cloud
just happens to be passing by, and this part of it is being eroded
by the light from Merope only 0.06 light-year away. E. E. Barnard
discovered much larger parts of the Merope cloud in the 19th century;
it's now designated IC 349. For more information, see the online
press release.
The Pleiades
can easily be seen with the naked eye high in the east these evenings,
lying above brilliant Jupiter. You may be able to spot five or
six Pleiads with your naked eye — binoculars and telescopes
will reveal dozens more. Yellowish Saturn is off to their right,
and orange Aldebaran is below Jupiter. To help guide your way
through the evening sky, see the maps for Monthly
Northern Sky Highlights.
— Stuart
J. Goldman
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