Merope Nebula

IC 349, also known as Barnard's Merope Nebula, is a nebula which lies 0.06 light years from the star Merope in the Pleiades cluster.⁣ ⁣ IC 349 may be an example of a cold, dense, very small-scale condensation of the interstellar medium.. Further searches in the near-infrared also failed to show any evidence of an embedded protostar in the bright knot, showing only wavelength-dependent scattering of light consistent with the presence of very fine dust particles.⁣ ⁣ Analysis of the nebula's space motion indicate it does not share the velocity and direction of the Pleiades, suggesting a chance encounter between the objects. Because IC 349 shares the velocity of molecular gas in the nearby Taurus Molecular Cloud complex, it may have originated there.⁣ ⁣ IC 349 is now sufficiently close to Merope that its envelope is undergoing disruption by either the star's radiation pressure, a stellar wind, or both (which is nerd speak for the reeeeally bright light at the top of the image).⁣ ⁣ This image was created from 3 subframes of different wavelengths from the Hubble WFC Planetary Camera 2 taken in 2014. These raw data files were downloaded from the Hubble Archive and processed using PixInsight. The Infra Red data was mapped to the 3 visual channels (F439 to Red, F555 to Green and F814 to Blue) to maximise the detail inside this amazing object ⁣