Hyades
The Hyades (Melotte 25) — the nearest open star cluster to the Sun, about 153 light-years away, forming the V-shaped face of Taurus the Bull. Its few hundred stars were born together some 625 million years ago and drift through space as a family. The brilliant orange star Aldebaran appears set in the V, but is a foreground star less than half as far away — not a member of the cluster.
Science
Physical
- Type
- Open star cluster (the closest to the Sun)
- Distance
- ~153 light-years
- Age
- ~625 million years
- Members
- A few hundred stars, born together
- Note
- Aldebaran lies in front of the V — a foreground star, not a member
How we know
- Note
- The image is a REAL wide-field photograph from NOIRLab (built from the Digitized Sky Survey 2, CC BY 4.0), shown as a camera-facing billboard at the cluster's real position — presented as seen from Earth.
Discovery & history
- Name
- From the Greek Hyades ('the rainy ones'); Melotte 25 and Caldwell 41 in modern catalogues.
Known since antiquity — the Greeks cast the Hyades as half-sisters of the Pleiades, and their dawn rising marked the rainy season. In modern times the cluster's closeness made it a cornerstone for calibrating stellar distances; ESA's Hipparcos and Gaia missions have since measured its members with great precision.
Images
Images from open archives · credit shown per image