122. THE PLEIADIANS

Keeping It Real

TE X Channeling the E.T.’s. MOTHER G COMING IN HOT WITH GOLDEN NUGGETS. The Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, Messier 45, and other names given by different cultures reflects an observed pattern formed by those stars, in an asterism of an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the northwest of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light-years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth and the nearest Messier object to Earth, being the most obvious star cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It is also observed to house the reflection nebula NGC 1432, an HII region. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be leftover material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing.