The Pleiades or Seven Sisters

This photograph, from the Digitized Sky Survey, shows that there are a lot more than seven stars in this famous cluster. Moving your mouse pointer over the picture reveals the names and locations of the Sisters along with their father and mother, Atlas and Pleione.

The hot young stars of the Pleiades are enveloped in an enormous cloud of dust and interstellar debris. The light from these stars reflects off the cloud and is scattered toward the blue end of the visible spectrum creating a beautiful reflection nebula. If the color shade of the nebula seems familiar, it may be because a similar scattering of sunlight creates our blue skies on Earth.