Explanation: The well known Pleiades star cluster is slowly destroying part of a passing cloud of gas and dust . The Pleiades is the brightest open cluster of stars on Earth's sky and can be seen from almost any northerly location with the unaided eye . The passing young dust cloud is thought to be part of Gould's belt , an unusual ring of young star formation surrounding the Sun in the local Milky Way Galaxy . Over the past 100,000 years, part of Gould's belt is by chance moving right through the older Pleiades and is causing a strong reaction between stars and dust. Pressure from the stars' light significantly repels the dust in the surrounding blue reflection nebula , with smaller dust particles being repelled more strongly. A short-term result is that parts of the dust cloud have become filamentary and stratified, as seen in the above deep-exposure image .