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Pleiades

Adapted from Wikipedia · Explorer experience

The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, is a beautiful group of stars visible in the night sky.

The Beautiful Pleiades

The Pleiades is a lovely group of stars in the night sky. People also call it the Seven Sisters or Messier 45. It is easy to spot in the sky near the constellation Taurus. The Pleiades is one of the closest star groups to Earth, only about 444 light-years away.

You can see the Pleiades with your eyes alone, even in places with lots of lights. The stars in this group are very young and shine brightly. They formed within the last 100 million years. Around these stars, there are beautiful glowing clouds of dust called reflection nebulae. Two of these are NGC 1432 and NGC 1435, also known as the Merope Nebula.

Long ago, people used the Pleiades to help make calendars. Its special shape made it easy to see in the night sky. Ancient cultures like the Greeks, Indians, and many others watched for the Pleiades to know when seasons changed. Even today, the Pleiades remains a favorite for stargazers and astronomers.

The stars in the Pleiades will slowly move apart over time. In about 250 million years, they will be too far apart to look like a group anymore. But for now, the Pleiades keeps shining as a wonderful sight for everyone to enjoy.

Images

The Nebra sky disk is an ancient bronze artifact from Germany that shows early depictions of the sun and stars. It helps us learn about how people understood the sky thousands of years ago.
The reverse side of a 2020 Australian $1 coin featuring the Seven Sisters star cluster.
A stunning view of the Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Pleiades star cluster shown with its movement over 10,000 years.
A beautiful reflection nebula called IC 349 near the star Merope in the Pleiades star cluster.
A map showing the location of the Pleiades star cluster in the Taurus constellation from a southern viewpoint.
Portrait of Charles Messier, an astronomer known for cataloging celestial objects.
Historical drawing of the Pleiades star cluster from Galileo's astronomical observations.
An animated view showing how stars in the Pleiades cluster move over hundreds of thousands of years.
An artist's impression 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 Pleiades, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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