Matariki (Pleiades)

I’ve mentioned the Pleiades constellation several times in the last month or so because the traditional Maori New Year, Matariki—which is also the Maori name for the constellation—is celebrated when the Pleiades first rise into Southern Hemisphere skies, which happens around the time of the winter solstice. So Matariki, like the solstice, has recently been and gone, hence the whole mentioning thing …

… But as you may have gathered, I’m quite keen on stars and stuff anyway, so I got quite enthused when I popped over to Phil Plait’s Bad Astronomy website yesterday and saw that he had posted on—you’ve guessed it, the Pleiades. And there was this really cool photograph of

WISE_Pleiades Cloud

the constellation moving through a dense cloud of galactic dust and gas, which was taken by NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Mr Plait had a whole lot more to say about the constellation and the galactic gas/dust cloud, but rather than my trying to paraphrase him (most likely badly) you should go over there and read it for yourself. I found it fascinating.