APOD
The Pleiades Star Cluster
October 18, 1997D. Malin
(AAO),
AATB,
ROE,
UKS Telescope
About This Image
It is the most famous star cluster on the sky. The Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades is one of the brightest and closest open clusters. The Pleiades contains over 3000 stars, is about 400 light years away, and only 13 light years across. Quite evident in the above photograph are the blue reflection nebulae that surround the bright cluster stars. Low mass, faint, brown dwarfs have recently been found in the Pleiades.
On This Day in Space History
On October 18, 1989, the Galileo spacecraft was launched toward Jupiter, where it would study the gas giant and its moons for 14 years.
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