---
title: "Pleiades: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, is a young cluster of more than a thousand stars in Taurus and one of the most recognizable sights in the night sky."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/pleiades
language: en-US
---

# Pleiades

Star cluster. Depth 29 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Milky Way.

The Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, is a young cluster of more than a thousand stars in Taurus and one of the most recognizable sights in the night sky. Its distance was the subject of a long-running dispute that Gaia data helped settle.

![The Pleiades at depth 29 in Krillion Space, from a Spitzer infrared photo (NASA / JPL-Caltech).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/pleiades.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Open star cluster
- **Distance:** About 440 light-years from the Sun
- **Size:** The gravitationally bound core is about 23 parsecs (about 75 light-years) across, based on a tidal radius of about 11.6 parsecs
- **Constellation:** Taurus
- **Position in the sky:** Right ascension 3h 47m, declination +24° 07′
- **Seeing it from Earth:** Easily seen with the naked eye from both hemispheres as a small, tight group of stars in Taurus, best in the evening sky around December; binoculars show many more members.
- **On the voyage:** Depth 29, in the Milky Way section of the route, between TRAPPIST-1e and Betelgeuse

## Things to know

- The Pleiades holds more than a thousand loosely bound stars, but a handful of bright blue members give the cluster its familiar look. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-45/))
- People have watched the cluster since ancient times, and Galileo was the first to look at it through a telescope. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-45/))
- Hipparcos data published in 1997 put the cluster about 10% closer than other methods suggested, which started a long debate. ([ESA](https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/hipparcos/pleiades-distance))
- Most methods, including radio measurements in 2014, put the cluster 130 to 140 parsecs away, and a 2019 Gaia analysis gave 135 parsecs, siding against the Hipparcos value of about 120. ([arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03924))
- A Hubble image shows a dusty cloud near the star Merope being broken apart by the star's radiation. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-45/))

## Sources

- [NASA Science (Hubble) – Messier 45 (The Pleiades)](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/hubble/science/explore-the-night-sky/hubble-messier-catalog/messier-45/)
- [Lodieu et al. 2019, A&A – A 5D view of the Alpha Per, Pleiades, and Praesepe clusters (arXiv)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03924)
- [Melis et al. 2014, Science – A VLBI resolution of the Pleiades distance controversy (arXiv)](https://arxiv.org/abs/1408.6544)
- [ESA Hipparcos – Pleiades distance](https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/hipparcos/pleiades-distance)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [TRAPPIST-1e](https://krilion.app/atlas/trappist-1)
- Next landmark: [Betelgeuse](https://krilion.app/atlas/betelgeuse)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.