January 22, 2020
You were born into motion: oceans turning, continents drifting, clouds forming, planets circling, galaxies wheeling through the dark.
The Hyades Star Cluster
Birthday · January 22, 2020
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APOD published January 22, 2020. Credit: Jose Mtanous. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
It is the closest cluster of stars to the Sun. The Hyades open cluster is bright enough to have been remarked on even thousands of years ago, yet is not as bright or compact as the nearby Pleiades (M45) star cluster. Pictured here is a particularly deep image of the Hyades which has brings out vivid star colors and faint coincidental nebulas. The brightest star in the field is yellow Aldebaran, the eye of the bull toward the constellation of Taurus. Aldebaran, at 65 light-years away, is now known to be unrelated to the Hyades cluster, which lies about 150 light-years away. The central Hyades stars are spread out over about 15 light-years. Formed about 625 million years ago, the Hyades likely shares a common origin with the Beehive cluster (M44), a naked-eye open star cluster toward the constellation of Cancer, based on M44's motion through space and remarkably similar age.
Image credit: Jose Mtanous