STAR SISTERS

After spending a little time on the news feeds today I went searching through my astronomy photos. 

This cluster of young stars called the Pleides. The stars are Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygeta, Celaeano, and Alcyone. In Greek mythology the stars were the daughters of the titan Atlas. In one legend they were pursued by Orion, in deperation they called out to Zeus who transformed them first to birds and then stars. The cluster forms the shoulder of the constellation Taurus, the bull. 

The bull being eternally hunted by Orion, the hunter. Who according to one legend boasted that he would kill all the animals. In defense Artemis and his mother Leto sent a scorpian to kill him. The battle caught the attention of Zeus who placed them both in the sky in part as a reminder to mortals to curb their ambitions. So you have Tauraus hunted by Orion who is pursued by Scorpio. Their stories were their books. 

Most of the stars in the cluster are about 100 million years old and only (so to speak) 425 light years away. Barely out the back door in stellar terms. The brightest stars are visible from near the north pole to the tip of South America. Almost all the stars in the cluster are moving in the same direction. The entire cluster contains hundreds of stars barely out of their gas cloud swaddling clothes. Eventually gravity will pull the "sisters" in different directions and the cluster will slowily disappear.

Six of the seven are easily visible but there is evidence from more than one culture of a seventh, slighty dimmer star. It's possible that modern light and industrial pollution have caused just enough changes in the atmosphere to obscure that seventh star.