Explanation: In the well known Pleiades star cluster, a star's light is slowly destroying this wandering cloud of gas and dust. Above, the star Merope lies just off the upper left edge of this picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. The cloud, known as IC 349, and the star have been in existence for millions of years. In the past 100,000 years, however, part of the cloud has by chance moved so close to the star - only 3,500 times the Earth-Sun distance - that the starlight itself is having a very dramatic effect. Pressure of the star's light significantly repels the dust in the reflection nebula with smaller dust particles being repelled more strongly. Eventually parts of the dust cloud have become stratified and point toward Merope, with the closest particles being the most massive and so the least affected by the radiation pressure. A longer-term result will be the general destruction of the dust by the energetic starlight.
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 |
Yanvar' Fevral' Mart Aprel' Mai Iyun' Iyul' Avgust Sentyabr' Oktyabr' Noyabr' Dekabr' |
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Publikacii s klyuchevymi slovami:
pleiades - reflection nebula - Merope - Pleyady - otrazhatel'nye tumannosti - Meropa
Publikacii so slovami: pleiades - reflection nebula - Merope - Pleyady - otrazhatel'nye tumannosti - Meropa | |
Sm. takzhe:
Vse publikacii na tu zhe temu >> |