credits: Manfred_Konrad via Getty Images
The night sky can be a wondrous place filled with stars, but there are some brilliant celestial lights that shine brighter than others.
Yesterday night, 11 July Moon met the Seven Sisters Pleiades and 13 July Moon wil be near Aldebaran, Mars and the Pleiades.
The Pleiades, do you know ?
The Pleiades is a bright star cluster and a popular skywatching target.
The Pleiades are an asterism, or pattern of stars, as well as an open star cluster, made up of more than 1,000 stars.
They are located in the constellation Taurus and are about 410 light-years from Earth.
Recently astronomers discovered that the Pleiades star cluster has more than 3,000 sibling stars that originated from the same giant molecular cloud.
The Seven Sisters ?
The Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters" (Messier 45), is a young, bright open star cluster in the constellation Taurus. Located about 444 light-years away, it contains over 1,000 stars, though only 6 to 7 are typically visible to the naked eye
Also known as the "Seven Sisters" and Messier 45, they derive their English name from Greek legend in which the stars represent the daughters of the ocean nymph Pleione.
- Mythology :
Many ancient cultures had myths and stories associated with the Pleiades.
In Greek mythology, the Pleiades were the seven daughters of Atlas, a Titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid Pleione, protectress of sailing.
The sisters were Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno and Merope. Also, the Pleiades were sometimes said to be nymphs in the train of Artemis. They were half-sisters of the seven Hyades. The Hyades pattern is another star cluster near the Pleiades stars.
According to the myth, when the hunter Orion pursued the sisters, Zeus transformed them into doves and placed them in the heavens to protect.
According to a Polynesian legend, the Pleiades was once a single star: the brightest in the sky. The Polynesian god Tane disliked this star bragging about its beauty. So the god smashed the star into pieces, creating the Pleiades star cluster.
Pleiades and Halloween : The modern-day festival of Halloween originates from an old Druid rite that coincided with the midnight culmination of the Pleiades cluster. People believed the veil dividing the living from the dead was at its thinnest when the Pleiades culminates – reaches its highest point in the sky – at midnight.
Shortly before sunrise tomorrow morning, look for the thin waning crescent moon, glowing with earthshine. It’ll lie close to the horizon, with the red planet Mars and bright orange giant star Aldebaran somewhat higher in the east. You might see the tiny dipper-shaped Pleiades star cluster, too.
Chart via EarthSky
- How to watch :
Observing the night sky can be done with no special equipment, although a sky map can be very useful, and a good telescope or binoculars will enhance some experiences and bring some otherwise invisible objects into view.
- Resources:
Here the five best night sky sights of July 2026. Mark your calendar skygazers students !
- Best stargazing locations, recommended by the EarthSky community
Science : Hey stargazers ! Let's talk about the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades+ ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
