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                           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   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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