The Moon, Venus, and the Pleiades
Image Credit & Copyright:
Gianni Tumino
No, Earth did not recently acquire six more moons!
Today’s APOD
is a combination of images following the Moon, Venus, and
the Pleiades
across a southern Sicilian sky
as twilight turned to evening on April 19.
From 2023 to 2029, the Pleiades' and the Moon
“visit"
each other once per month due to the Pleiades' location in
the ecliptic plane.
April 2026 saw the celestial alignment of their visit with
Venus.
About six stars in the Pleiades cluster
(Messier 45)
are typically visible with the unaided eye. Due to the cluster’s visibility across the world, there are many myths and legends across cultures associated with the Pleiades.
The Haudenosaunee people
of North America,
for example,
say that seven boys danced so enthusiastically that they lifted off into the sky.
Astronomers recently found thousands more Pleiades members,
showing that after thousands of years of gazing upon this cluster, there is yet more to learn about the Pleiades.