During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of them so that others would not make the same mistake he did. In time, this list (known as the Messier Catalog) would come to include 100 of the most fabulous objects in the night sky.
One of these is the famous Pleiades Cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters (and countless other names). An open star cluster located approximately 390 to 456 light years from Earth in the constellation of Taurus, this cluster is dominated by very bright, hot blue stars. Being both bright and of one of the nearest star clusters to Earth, this cluster is easily visible to the naked eye in the night sky.
Description:
The nine brightest stars of the Pleiades are named for the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology: Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygete, Celaeno, and Alcyone, along with their parents Atlas and Pleione. To the X-ray telescopes on board the orbiting ROSAT observatory, the cluster also presents an impressive, but slightly altered, appearance.
This false color image was produced from ROSAT observations by translating different X-ray energy bands to visual colors – the lowest energies are shown in red, medium in green, and highest energies in blue. (The green boxes mark the position of the seven brightest visual stars.)
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