Pleiades Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Pleiades
A color-composite image of the Pleiades from the Digitized Sky Survey Credit: NASA/ESA/AURA/Caltech
Observation data (J2000 epoch)
Constellation	Taurus
Right ascension	03^h 47^m 24^s
Declination	+24° 07′ 00″
Distance	444 ly on average (136.2±1.2 pc)
Apparent magnitude (V)	1.6
Apparent dimensions (V)	110' (arcmin)
Physical characteristics
Other designations	M45, Seven Sisters, Melotte 22
See also: Open cluster, List of open clusters

The Pleiades (also known as M45 or the Seven Sisters) are a group of stars in the night sky. You can see them in the constellation Taurus, the bull. Charles Messier gave it the name M45. They are named after the Pleiades in Greek mythology.

This an open star cluster of middle-aged hot B-type stars in the constellation of Taurus. It is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth, and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky. The cluster is dominated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.

Images for kids

The Nebra sky disk, dated circa 1600 BC. The cluster of dots in the upper right portion of the disk is believed to be the Pleiades.
1 dollar commemorative coin issued in 2020 by the Royal Australian Mint. On the reverse, the Seven Sisters (Pleiades) are represented, according to an ancient story of Australian Indigenous tradition.
Galileo's drawings of the Pleiades star cluster from Sidereus Nuncius
A map of the Pleiades
Stars of Pleiades with color and 10,000-year backwards proper motion shown
Hubble Space Telescope image of reflection nebulosity near Merope (IC 349)
A starchart of the Pleiades and their nebulae
The approximate location of the Pleiades just above the Local Bubble in the middle of this map of the Orion Arm (yellow: major stellar associations; red: nebulae; grey: dark nebulae.