Bill The Cat

By billthecat

The Pleiades Cluster in Taurus

The Pleiades, or M45, is the most famous star cluster of them all and visible from almost anywhere on earth. I have two images for it here, the main one is as is and the extra is with all the star names and some lines added. A mini big dipper in a way.

Around 400 light years away from us it consists of the mythological seven sisters, the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, and formed in the last 50 million years. 
The light reaching us today left that cluster around the year 1600, around the same time Galileo first observed the moons of Jupiter. Today we are looking at pictures from the latest probe orbiting Jupiter, Juno.
I wonder what the earth will be like in 400 to meet the light leaving the Pleiades today?

The WBC theme this week is Light, so this may be my entry unless there is a cracking sunset tomorrow.

p.s. This is an animation of the Pleiades moving through the galaxy over 400,000 years!

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