Head outside tonight and drink in the sight of the Pleiades open star cluster glistening close to the red star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus, before the mesmerizing naked-eye jewel slips out of view with the changing of the seasons.

The Pleiades are at their most spectacular from October to March, after which the cluster slips ever lower in the spring sky, appearing closer to the horizon with each passing night. By late April, it will be lost to sight in the glare of the setting sun and won't be seen again until the very end of June, when it will briefly shine close to the red light of Mars in the predawn sky.

On a clear night under dark skies, the Pleiades appear as a distinct haze of light that becomes easier to see when you look slightly to one side — a technique known as averted vision, which helps your eyes pick up faint objects.

The Pleiades is a vast collection of roughly 1,000 gravitationally bound blue-white stars, the seven most prominent of which are named after the daughters of the Titan Atlas from Greek mythology — Asterope, Alcyone, Celaeno, Maia, Electra, Taygete and Merope.

How to find the Pleiades

Finding the Pleiades is easy with a little help from the most recognizable constellation in the northern hemisphere night sky — Orion, the Hunter — which is currently shining about halfway up the southwestern sky after sunset through late March. Next, identify the three familiar stars of Orion's Belt.

Draw an imaginary line from the leftmost star, Alnitak, through the rightmost star, Mintaka and out into space. Follow it past the red giant star Aldebaran and you'll find the hazy light representing the stellar city of the Pleiades!

A pair of 10X50 binoculars can help to reveal the seven brightest stars of the Pleiades along with numerous fainter blue-white companions, while a small telescope enhances the view to reveal dozens more of the stellar grouping.

To view the cluster's ancient light is to follow in the footsteps of the greatest astronomers ever to have walked the Earth, including the famed Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, who recorded the first ever telescopic observation of the Pleiades in his 1610 work Sidereus Nuncius, the Sidereal Messenger.

Want to marvel at the stars of the Pleiades for yourself? Then be sure to read our roundup of the best telescopes and binoculars for observing the night sky, along with our picks of the best smartphone astronomy apps available in 2026.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your photos of the Pleiades with Space.com's readers, then please send your image(s), comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Look to the west after sunset this week for a spectacular sight, as the razor-thin waxing crescent moon hangs low above the horizon with earthshine bathing its unlit surface in a soft, otherworldly glow.

This month's new moon phase occurred at 9:23 p.m. EDT on March 18 (0123 GMT on March 19) as the moon lay between the sun and Earth in the daytime sky. Earthshine — also known as the Da Vinci glow, or romantically as the old moon in the new moon's arms — occurs on the nights directly preceding and following the new moon phase, when sunlight bounces off Earth's surface to strike the shadowed expanse of the lunar disk.

Your first chance to spot earthshine infusing the lunar surface will come immediately after sunset on March 19, though you'll need to be lucky and stake out a viewing spot with a clear view of the western horizon to stand a fighting chance. The whisper-thin waxing crescent moon will be visible to the lower right of Venus 10 degrees above the horizon — approximately the width of your clenched fist held at arm's length.

You'll have a much better chance of spotting the phenomenon at sunset on the following night (March 20), by which time the lunar disk will have leapt above Venus, appearing higher in the southern sky.

Look out for the moon's upturned crescent, now just 2%-lit, above the evening star of Venus, as light reflected from Earth's clouds picks out the faint shapes of lunar seas, or mare, scarring the moon's ancient surface where lava once filled vast networks of impact basins.

Want to get a closer look at the moon? Then be sure to read our guides to the best telescopes and binoculars for observing the night sky. Why not also read our guide to photographing the moon, along with our roundups of the top lenses and camera bodies for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your moon pictures with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s) and comments, along with your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Astronomers have discovered that the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades star cluster have more stellar siblings than we thought  — a lot more.

Using NASA's exoplanet hunting spacecraft TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the European Space Agency star tracking spacecraft Gaia, scientists found that this highly familiar astronomical body contains around 20 times more stars than was previously known. The discovery not only has wide-reaching implications for the study of young star systems, but also cultural implications, as the Pleiades have been featured throughout recorded history around the world including mentions in the Old Testament and the Talmud.

The scientists behind the discovery say it could shift how humanity views one of the most well-known groupings of stars visible to the naked eye. "This study changes how we see the Pleiades — not just seven bright stars, but thousands of long-lost siblings scattered across the whole sky," Andrew Boyle, lead author and graduate student in physics and astronomy at UNC-Chapel Hill, said in a statement.

The previously hidden new members of the Pleiades were discovered when a team of researchers from UNC-Chapel Hill used data from Gaia and TESS to measure the speed of known stars' rotations. These measurements can reveal familial associations between stars that have drifted apart because the rate at which stars spin can be used as a cosmic 'clock' to determine their ages. Young stars spin more rapidly, while older stars spin more slowly.

The team's new approach of mapping stars by tracking their rotation could reveal that many star clusters that were previously independent are actually part of much larger stellar families.

"We're realizing that many stars near the sun are part of massive extended stellar families with complex structures," said team member Andrew Mann, professor of physics and astronomy at UNC-Chapel Hill. "Our work provides a new way to uncover these hidden relationships."

Indeed, using this technique to trace the family trees and birth locations of stars could help track down the stellar family from which our own star, the sun, originated, and that would provide scientists a much better understanding of how the solar system came to be and how our own Milky Way galaxy took shape.

"By measuring how stars spin, we can identify stellar groups too scattered to detect with traditional methods — opening a new window into the hidden architecture of our galaxy," Boyle concluded.

The team's research was published on Wednesday (Nov.12) in The Astrophysical Journal.

The moon will sweep close to the Pleiades open star cluster in the early morning hours of Aug. 16-17, with the ice giant Uranus lurking unseen nearby.

Look to the eastern horizon an hour after midnight on Aug. 16 to see the half-lit lunar disk — which hits its third quarter phase at 1:12 a.m. EDT (0512 GMT) — roughly 5 degrees to the upper right of the famous Pleiades star cluster. A day later, on Aug.17, the moon will be sitting about 5 degrees to the lower left of the Pleiades. Remember: the width of your three middle fingers held at arm's length measures roughly 5 degrees in the night sky.

The Pleiades, also called the 'Seven Sisters', appears as a faint milky smudge of light to the naked eye and may be a little challenging to spot in the moon-lit sky. If you're having trouble finding it, try the averted vision technique, looking slightly to the side of the cluster so it falls in your peripheral vision, which can make it stand out more clearly.

Stargazers new to exploring the night sky may benefit from the aid of a smartphone astronomy app, which uses augmented reality technology to point the way to specific stars and deep space objects.

A pair of 10x50 binoculars will reveal the Pleiades' seven brightest stars, along with a plethora of large impact craters on the moon's surface, including Kepler and Copernicus, which will be visible slightly above the lunar equator. An 8-inch telescope will grant a magnificent view of the cluster's white-blue stellar population shining through tenuous clouds of interstellar dust, while also making Uranus detectable as a tiny aqua dot less than 5 degrees to the lower right of the Pleiades on Aug 16.

The moon will drift closer to the star cluster as the early morning hours continue their relentless march towards dawn on Aug. 16. By the time the moon rises on Aug. 17, it will have jumped to the opposite side of the Pleiades, and will move ever further away from it in the nights that follow, as its disk continues to grow thinner ahead of its new moon phase.

Stargazers hoping to explore the heavens for themselves should check out our roundup of the best telescope and binocular deals available in 2025. Photographers hoping to capture the majesty of the post-sunset realm should also read our pick of the best lenses and cameras for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you would like to share your astrophotography with Space.com's readers, then please send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

Two of the most popular sights in the night sky will join up tonight in a gorgeous pairing.

The four-day-old waxing crescent moon will be positioned just below the Pleiades star cluster, also known as Messier 45 or simply M45. The two will be separated by around just 3 degrees, equal to a few finger widths if your arm is stretched out. That's close enough for the pair to be seen together through binoculars or through a telescope with a suitably low-magnification eyepiece.

The pairing will be visible as soon as the sun sets and will remain visible until they set shortly after midnight local time, at which point the moon will have moved in front of the stars of the Pleiades.

Related: Night sky, March 2024: What you can see tonight

Located in the constellation Taurus, the Bull, the Pleiades star cluster is one of the night sky's most popular asterisms, or patterns of stars. While only the brightest stars in M45 are visible to the unaided eye, the cluster contains more than 1,000 stars in total.

It is what's known as an open star cluster, meaning it's a loosely-bound collection of stars that are roughly the same age. It's estimated that the stars of the Pleiades are between 75 and 150 million years old. Open star clusters typically contain a few hundreds or thousands of stars, compared to globular clusters which can contain thousands to millions of stars.

The Pleiades are also known as the "Seven Sisters," a name based on a Greek legend in which the seven daughters of the ocean nymph Pleione and Atlas were turned into doves so they could fly into the heavens and escape the hunter Orion.

Just below the moon and the Pleiades tonight, a little over a fist's width at arm's length, Jupiter will be shining brightly with a pale yellow glow beside the horns of Aires, the Ram.

The moon is currently waxing, meaning its illuminated portion is growing larger as it approaches its half-lit first quarter phase on Sunday (March 17). Following that, the moon will reach its full phase on March 25 with the Full Worm Moon, which will also see a penumbral lunar eclipse.

If you're hoping to catch a look at the Pleiades near the crescent moon — or anything else in the night sky, for that matter — our guides to the best telescopes and best binoculars are a great place to start. If you're looking to snap photos of the night sky in general, check out our guide on how to photograph the moon, as well as our best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography.

Editor's Note: If you snap an image of the moon near the Pleaides and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.

This image of a stunning star cluster seems to resemble old friends sitting in a circle. The celestial object, officially known as M45, is an open star cluster often called the Pleiades.

The Pleiades star cluster is a group of 800 stars, formed about 100 million years ago and located 410 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Taurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).

One of the brightest stars in the cluster is called Atlas. This star, along with its companion Pleione and their seven daughter stars, make up what we can typically see with the naked eye.

The brightest stars glow a hot blue and formed within the last 100 million years. This means they are extremely luminous and burn out quickly. Scientists estimate these stars will survive for more than 200 million years before they die out.

This image was taken by avid astrophotographer Bill Snyder from his home observatory in Connellsville, Pennsylvania on Dec.18, 2010.

Editor's note: If you have an amazing skywatching photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.

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