The Taurus Cloud is the nearest large star-forming region, a web of dark filaments where small stars form one by one, far from any massive star.
At a glance
| type | nebula |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 460 light-years (141 pc) |
| its light left it | 460 years ago |
| size in the piece | about 91 light-years acrossmodel |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with. Model marks a property of the piece’s galaxy model rather than a measurement.
About Taurus Cloud
Across Taurus and Auriga the stars are thinned by long dark filaments of dust and molecular gas, many listed in Barnard’s catalogue of dark nebulae. Inside them stars are forming in a scattered, isolated way rather than in a dense cluster, and none of them are massive, so no bright nebula lights the clouds.
This is where T Tauri, the prototype of the youngest Sun-like stars, was found, together with the small fan of Hind’s Variable Nebula beside it. HL Tauri, whose disc was imaged with ringed gaps by the ALMA telescope, lies here too. The piece also carries the Taurus Molecular Cloud as its own entry; the two describe the same nearby complex.
What you see in the piece
From Earth it is dark lanes near the Hyades and Aldebaran; in the infrared band the cold dust shows up and the gaps fill in.
Questions
How far away is the Taurus Cloud?
The Taurus Cloud is about 460 light-years (141 pc) from the Sun.
Why is the Taurus Cloud important?
It is the nearest large region of star formation, and its young stars, including T Tauri itself, define how Sun-like stars begin.