                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2023 March 21
     A star field strewn with bunches of brown dust is pictured. In the
   center is a bright area of light brown dust, and in the center of that
    is a bright region of star formation. Please see the explanation for
                         more detailed information.

                  Dark Nebulae and Star Formation in Taurus
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Vikas Chander

   Explanation: Can dust be beautiful? Yes, and it can also be useful. The
   Taurus molecular cloud has several bright stars, but it is the dark
   dust that really draws attention. The pervasive dust has waves and
   ripples and makes picturesque dust bunnies, but perhaps more
   importantly, it marks regions where interstellar gas is dense enough to
   gravitationally contract to form stars. In the image center is a light
   cloud lit by neighboring stars that is home not only to a famous
   nebula, but to a very young and massive famous star. Both the star, T
   Tauri, and the nebula, Hind's Variable Nebula, are seen to vary
   dramatically in brightness -- but not necessarily at the same time,
   adding to the mystery of this intriguing region. T Tauri and similar
   stars are now generally recognized to be Sun-like stars that are less
   than a few million years old and so still in the early stages of
   formation. The featured image spans about four degrees not far from the
   Pleiades star cluster, while the featured dust field lies about 400
   light-years away.

               Tomorrow's picture: an unusually distant swirl
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