NASA’s Hubble and Webb Telescopes Reveal Two Faces of a Star Cluster Duo

These images from NASA's Hubble and Webb telescopes showcase an expanse of gas, dust, and stars of a duo of star clusters.

Uploads by OptimusPrimeBot - Wikimedia Commons

Dr Pamela L Gay (@[email protected])

One of my favorite things to do with students in the late fall is to take them outside and point first to the Orion nebula, then to the Pleiades, and finally to the Hyades cluster, saying, “These are snapshots in the evolution of open clusters.” Each of these systems is the home of young stars, but while the Orion nebula is very much a stellar nursery, with stars just 10 million years old or younger, the Pleiades, is more like a daycare center with stars 100 million years old or younger. At the same time, Hyades is more like an afterschool program for stars 730 million years old or younger. All these systems are filled with celestial children. In their youth, these stars still gather in clumps. But, as they age, the stars will drift apart until, as adults, they have no memory of the place they were born. Our Sun is one of these solitary stars and every time I introduce my students to these three open clusters, they ask what happened to the open cluster where our Sun was born. The truth is, the cluster and our Sun had a falling out. Read more on Substack https://open.substack.com/pub/starstryder/p/our-suns-lost-family