Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Taurus (Tau)  ·  Contains:  16 Tau  ·  17 Tau  ·  18 Tau  ·  19 q Tau  ·  20 Tau  ·  21 Tau  ·  22 Tau  ·  23 Tau  ·  24 Tau  ·  25 eta Tau  ·  26 Tau  ·  27 Tau  ·  28 Tau  ·  Alcyone  ·  Asterope  ·  Atlas  ·  Barnard's Merope Nebula  ·  Celaeno  ·  Electra  ·  IC 349  ·  M 45  ·  Maia  ·  Maia Nebula  ·  Merope  ·  Merope Nebula  ·  NGC 1432  ·  NGC 1435  ·  Pleiades  ·  Pleione  ·  Sterope II  ·  And 10 more.
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M45 Pleiades, autonm
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M45 Pleiades

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M45 Pleiades, autonm
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M45 Pleiades

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Newcastle, UK

M45 Pleiades

The Pleiades also known as The Seven Sisters and Messier 45, is an *open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus.

It is among the star clusters nearest to Earth, it is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the cluster most obvious to the naked eye in the night sky.

The cluster is dominated by hot blue and luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years.

Computer simulations have shown that the Pleiades were probably formed from a compact configuration that resembled the Orion Nebula. Astronomers estimate that the cluster will survive for about another 250 million years, after which it will disperse due to gravitational interactions with its galactic neighbourhood.



*An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way Galaxy, and many more are thought to exist.

They are loosely bound by mutual gravitational attraction and become disrupted by close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the galactic center. This can result in a migration to the main body of the galaxy and a loss of cluster members through internal close encounters.

Open clusters generally survive for a few hundred million years, with the most massive ones surviving for a few billion years. In contrast, the more massive globular clusters of stars exert a stronger gravitational attraction on their members, and can survive for longer. Open clusters have been found only in spiral and irregular galaxies, in which active star formation is occurring.

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M45 Pleiades, autonm