Indigenous Skies of Alberta

The Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, Subaru, and Messier 45, is a beautiful open star cluster in the November sky. The asterism is populated by hot blue and extremely luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. The brightest stars are Alcyone, Atlas, Maia, Merope, Electra, Pleione, Taygeta, Celaone, Sterope, Asterope. Most of the stars in the Pleiades are enveloped by a bluish nebula. HD 23514 is a star in the Pleiades surrounded by hot dust particles. These dust particles are believed to be the seeds of planetesimals. Planetesimals ascience.ucalgary.ca/rothney-observatory/community/skylore/pleiadesre the building blocks of planets. The stars in the Pleiades are slowing moving apart. Astronomers estimate that after 250 million years the stars will be widely dispersed and the grouping of stars will be gone.