The Pleiades: The Seven Sisters

The Pleiades star cluster or “the Seven Sisters” is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the most discernible to the naked eye. Visible from nearly every location on the planet, Pleiades can be seen from the north pole to the southernmost tip of South America. Historically, the Pleiades were seen as a group of seven stars, Alcyone, Atlas, Electra, Maia, Merope, Taygeta and Pleione. With modern technology, we now know that the Pleiades cluster is actually comprised of several hundred stars. The Pleiades is also one of the nearest examples of a reflection nebula. Analysis of the spectra of the nebulae by Vesto Slipher in 1912 concluded that the source of light corresponded to the spectra of the associated Pleiades stars. Cold gas and
In fact, the seven most visible stars in the Pleiades cluster were named by the Greeks. In Greek mythology, the Pleiads were the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. Atlas was a titan who held up the sky and Pleione was the protectress of sailing. The seven heavenly sisters engaged in affairs with several of the most prominent male Olympian gods including Zeus, Poseidon and Ares. Maia, who was the eldest of the seven, was the mother of Hermes by Zeus. Also mothering children by Zeus were Electra and Taygete. Alcyone was the mother of Hyrieus, Hyperenor and Aethusa by Poseidon. Celaeno was the mother of Lycus and Eurypylus also by Poseidon. Sterope or Asterope mothered Oenomas by Ares. Merope, the youngest, married the mortal Sisyphus and in turn became mortal herself. Perhaps one of the most memorable myths involving the seven sisters is the story of how they became stars. After a chance encounter with the hunter Orion, the Pleiads became the object of his relentless pursuit. Zeus, in order to protect the sisters from Orion, changed the sisters into a flock of doves and sent them into the heavens. In an alternative account, the Pleiads killed themselves from grief over the death of their sisters, the Hyades. In turn, Zeus immortalized the sisters by placing them in the
The Greek poet Hesiod mentions the Pleiads several times in his Works and Days, “And if longing seizes you for sailing the stormy seas, when the Pleiades flee mighty Orion and plunge into the misty deep and all the gusty winds are raging, then do not keep your ship on the wine-dark sea but, as I bid you, remember to work the land.” The Greeks also mentioned the rising of the Pleiades in the ancient text Geoponica, a twenty-book collection of agricultural lore. The Hecatompedon temple and the Parthenon are oriented to their