{"id":19615,"date":"2010-05-31T18:24:14","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T18:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/the-seven-sisters\/"},"modified":"2010-05-31T18:24:14","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T18:24:14","slug":"the-seven-sisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/the-seven-sisters.php","title":{"rendered":"The Seven Sisters"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The Dance of the Pleiades, Elihu Vedder 02\/26\/1836 - 01\/29\/1923<\/p><\/div>

Known since antiquity to cultures the world over, and containing over 1,000 members, the Pleiades star cluster is a prominent winter target in the Northern hemisphere, and summer target in the Southern hemisphere.  Dominated by young, hot blue stars, the cluster is about 440 ly away from Earth.  Nine of the stars are commonly named; Atlas and Pleione are the parents, the remaining seven the “sisters”.<\/p>

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NASA\/JPL\/ESA\/CalTech PD-USgov - Brought to you by Hubble <\/p><\/div>

By the way, the Reflection Nebula associated with the Pleiades is not part of the cluster, but only a dusty region of space the cluster is currently passing through (dust and hydrogen gas).  The Pleiades itself is a physically related cluster; not just a chance alignment of stars.  Its estimated age is about 115 million years.<\/p>

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NASA\/ESA Reflection Nebula near Merope - As seen through the eyes of Hubble<\/p><\/div>

Although young, blue stars dominate the Pleiades, it also contains a respectable resident population of brown dwarfs.  Current estimates of the cluster population place brown dwarfs at 25%.  Since they are still young and bright, scientists are able to study them with relative ease.  This is also helpful in determining the age of the cluster (remember lithium?).<\/p>

The Pleiades figure prominently in the mythology of almost every culture known since antiquity.  To the Mayans, the universe itself comes from the Pleiades.  There are almost as many stories as there are stars in the cluster.  No mystery there; a large group of uncommonly beautiful blue stars is bound to attract attention.  It’s certainly held our attention… for over four thousand years.<\/p>
Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro’ the mellow shade,<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr>
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid.<\/strong><\/em><\/td><\/tr>
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- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1837-8,<\/em><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>

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.. The Dance of the Pleiades, Elihu Vedder 02\/26\/1836 - 01\/29\/1923Known since antiquity to cultures the world over, and containing over 1,000 members, the Pleiades star cluster is a prominent winter target in the Northern hemisphere, and summer target in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}