Image 5-19
Pleiades Star Cluster

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the brilliant stars of the popular open star cluster known as the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. It is one of the closest star clusters to Earth. The cluster is dominated by extremely bright and hot hot blue stars that all formed within the last 100 million years. Dust forms a faint reflection nebula around the brightest stars. The Pleiades star cluster is located about 440 light-years in the constellation Taurus. The cluster is loosely bound by gravity and will eventually disperse as the stars move away from each other in about 250 million years.