This jewel in the cosmic crown can be viewed without a telescope

Many objects in the night sky can only be seen with binoculars or a telescope, but not the Pleiades or the Seven Stars. This open, glittering star cluster is easy to see with the naked eye this winter.

You can find the Seven Sisters in the constellation Taurus. It is very easy to find a constellation if you know the constellation Orion. The constellation Orion has a “belt” of three stars. This is Orion’s belt. Follow Orion’s belt up (orange line) and you will come to a bright star – Aldebaran. This is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus. Continue along the line (yellow line) a bit and you will reach the Pleiades. You can see it clearly on the map below.

The Pleiades are one of the closest star groups. The open cluster contains at least 500 stars and is found At a distance of over 400 light years from Earth. Star clusters are about 100 million years old. Now the stars are held together by gravity, but scientists believe the cluster will collapse within 250 million years.

One-quarter of out of seven stars are called brown dwarfs. This is actually a failed star. The mass of a brown dwarf is too small to initiate nuclear fusion. They glow in infrared light, but emit very little “normal” light.

Light pollution or not?
If you look at seven stars, you won’t see as many stars as the French. If you look from the heart of Amsterdam, you will probably see five or six stars. It has to do with light pollution: the night sky is not completely dark. If you travel to the south of France and look for a dark place, there may be nine or even ten stars visible. If you use a telescope or binoculars, you can see up to hundreds of stars in the Pleiades. This makes the Seven Sisters an object of choice for amateur astronomers.

The Pleiades are in the Bible
Since the Pleiades are visible to the naked eye, this star cluster has been known for a long time. Indeed the Pleiades are mentioned several times in the Old Testament of the Bible. “He created Ursa Major and Orion and the Pleiades and the Southern Star” This is written in Job 9 verse 9. But the Pleiades are also mentioned in the Iliad and Odyssey of the Greek poet Homer.

This week’s satellite image
This week’s satellite image Created by Damien Cannane From Florida to the USA. The image is exposed a little longer, so the nebula around the star cluster can also be clearly seen. A beautiful image of this sparkling diamond.