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Maia (star)

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

A beautiful view of stars in the Pleiades cluster, showing the bright star Maia 20 Tau.

Maia is a beautiful and bright star in the night sky. It is part of a famous group of stars called the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters. This group is easy to spot and looks like tiny stars close together.

Maia shines in the constellation called Taurus. It is the fourth-brightest star in the Pleiades. Around Maia, there is a glowing cloud of gas and dust called the Maia Nebula. This makes the area look fuzzy and bright when we look through telescopes.

The name Maia comes from old stories from Greece. In these stories, Maia was one of seven sisters called the Pleiades. People have loved looking at these stars for thousands of years because they are close and easy to find. Scientists study stars like Maia to learn how stars are born and grow.

Images

The Crab Nebula is a beautiful cloud of gas and dust in space, formed from the explosion of a star. It glows with colorful light from different elements and is studied by scientists to learn about stars.
A beautiful star named Maia, part of the sparkling Pleiades Star Cluster in the night sky.
A graph showing how the brightness of the star Maia changes over time, used by scientists to study stars.
A stunning view of Earth rising over the Moon, captured by astronauts during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
An artist's view of HE 1523-0901, one of the oldest stars in our Galaxy, located about 7500 light years from Earth.

This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Maia (star), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Images from Wikimedia Commons. Tap any image to view credits and license.