- Denny Mountain (summitpost.org)
Denny Mountain is the prominent peak seen to the northwest of Snoqualmie Pass and to the north of I-90. The mountain consists of a one-mile long ridgeline oriented to the NNW with many jagged outcrops. The southern buttress of Denny can be seen towering above I-90 as the road approaches the pass from the west but the actual highpoint of the summit is hidden from eastbound freeway vantage points. The summit can be spotted by westbound drivers from the pass. Its NE face is home to the notoriously challenging Alpental ski area that boasts of having only 3% “easy” slopes and 75% “expert” with 22% in between.
- Open cluster (Wikipedia)
An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of tens to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and many more are thought to exist. Each one is loosely bound by mutual gravitational attraction and becomes disrupted by close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the Galactic Center. This can result in a loss of cluster members through internal close encounters and a dispersion into the main body of the galaxy. Open clusters generally survive for a few hundred million years, with the most massive ones surviving for a few billion years. In contrast, the more massive globular clusters of stars exert a stronger gravitational attraction on their members, and can survive for longer. Open clusters have been found only in spiral and irregular galaxies, in which active star formation is occurring.