Pleiades

Star Cluster

The brightest open cluster in the sky, a knot of hot blue stars that most people can pick out with the naked eye as six or seven points.

Facts

TypeStar Cluster
Cluster typeOpen
Distance from Earth444 ly
Diameter384,861,000,000,000 km
Mass1.59 × 10^33 kg
Apparent magnitude1.6
Redshift0
Discovered150

Pleiades in context

At 384,861,000,000,000 km across, Pleiades is 30,204,128,080 times the diameter of Earth.

Its mass is 800 times the mass of the Sun.

The light reaching us from Pleiades tonight left it around 444 years ago.

Of the 12 star clusters these pages cover, only 1 lie closer to us.

It has been on record since the year 150.

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