Video | The sky of the Arab world witnessed the conjunction of the moon with the Pleiades star cluster at dawn today

2024-08-26 2024-08-26T09:26:41Z

Arab Weather - The sky of the Arab world witnessed at dawn today the conjunction of the moon in the last quarter phase with the Pleiades star cluster, also known as the "Seven Sisters" due to the intense brightness of seven of its stars.

Pleiades cluster

Engineer Majed Abu Zahra, head of the Jeddah Astronomical Society, said that the Pleiades cluster will not be visible to the naked eye from within cities due to light pollution that blocks natural lights in the sky. However, it can be seen clearly using binoculars, and the moon and the Pleiades can even be seen together within the scope of a telescope due to the short apparent distance between them.

The Pleiades cluster, which is shaped like the stars of Ursa Minor but appears hazy, is located in the northern hemisphere and is associated with winter, Abu Zahra added. According to modern measurements, the Pleiades stars formed from the same cloud of gas and dust about 100 million years ago, compared to the age of the Sun, which is 4.5 billion years. The stars of this cluster are linked to each other through gravitational exchange, and move together in space, and many of the Pleiades stars shine with a brightness hundreds of times brighter than the Sun.