You’ve probably stepped outside on a crisp November night, looked toward the constellation Taurus, and seen that weird, shimmering little smudge of blue light. Most people think it’s the Little Dipper at first. It’s not. That tiny cluster of diamonds is actually the Pleiades, or what almost every culture on the planet calls the seven sisters stars.
But here’s the thing that’s been driving astronomers and myth-hunters crazy for centuries: if you have decent eyes and a dark sky, you can only see six.
Seriously. Go out and count them. Unless you’ve got superhuman vision or a pair of high-end binoculars, the seventh sister is basically a ghost. Yet, from the Greek islands to the Australian Outback and the plains of North America, the stories always insist there are seven.
It’s one of the greatest "glitches" in human history.
The Mystery of the Missing Sister
The Greeks had a whole soap opera to explain this. They named the stars after the daughters of Atlas: Maia, Electra, Alcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celaeno, and Merope. In the myths, Merope is often the "lost" one because she married a mortal—King Sisyphus—and supposedly hid her face in shame.
Other versions say it was Electra who vanished, grieving after the fall of Troy.
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But it’s not just a Greek thing.
The Aboriginal people in Australia tell stories of the Yungarayi (seven sisters) being chased by a hunter in the sky. One sister is always hiding or has been captured. In many Native American traditions, like the Kiowa or Cherokee, the stories also revolve around seven girls, with one often lagging behind or being lost to the earth.
How does that happen? How do groups of people separated by thousands of miles and tens of thousands of years all come up with the same "seven but actually six" narrative?
The 100,000-Year-Old Explanation
There’s a wild theory floating around scientific circles right now, championed by researchers like Ray Norris from Western Sydney University. They used computer models to track the "proper motion" of the stars—how they move through space relative to us over massive chunks of time.
It turns out that 100,000 years ago, the stars Atlas and Pleione were much further apart.
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Back then, the human eye would have easily seen seven distinct points of light. Today, those two stars have moved so close together that they look like a single blurred point to the naked eye. If this theory holds water, it means the story of the seven sisters stars might be the oldest story ever told—a piece of oral history passed down since humans were still in Africa.
What You’re Actually Looking At
If you put down the mythology books and pick up a telescope, the Seven Sisters get even weirder. This isn't just a random alignment. It’s an "open star cluster."
- Age: They’re babies, astronomically speaking. Only about 100 million years old. When dinosaurs were roaming the Earth, these stars didn't even exist yet.
- Distance: They’re roughly 440 light-years away. When you see their light tonight, you're looking at photons that started their journey during the mid-1500s.
- Color: They glow a fierce, hot blue. This tells us they are massive and burning through their fuel at a suicidal pace. They won't live for billions of years like our Sun; they’ll burn out fast and bright.
The "mist" you see around them isn't actually the remains of the nebula they were born from. That’s a common misconception. Astronomers used to think that, but we now know the cluster is just passing through a random cloud of interstellar dust. It’s like a car driving through a patch of fog. The light from the stars is reflecting off the dust, creating that ghostly blue glow we see in long-exposure photos.
The Seven Sisters Stars in Modern Life
Honestly, you probably see the Pleiades every single day without realizing it.
Ever looked at the back of a Subaru? The word Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, meaning "gathered together." The logo features six stars—the ones you can actually see. Originally, the brand was formed by the merger of five companies into one larger entity, and they chose the star cluster as the perfect symbol for that union.
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In New Zealand, the rising of the cluster is known as Matariki, marking the Māori New Year. It’s a time for remembering the dead and celebrating the harvest. It’s funny how a bunch of gas and fire trillions of miles away can dictate how we handle our calendars and car brands.
How to spot them tonight
If you want to find them yourself, don't look for a "dipper." Look for Orion.
Find Orion’s Belt (those three stars in a perfect line). Follow that line to the right (or up, depending on the time) until you hit a bright reddish star. That’s Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull. Keep going just a bit further in that same direction, and you’ll see the Seven Sisters.
Actionable Next Steps for Stargazers
- Test your vision: Try to count how many individual stars you can see in the cluster without help. Most see six. If you see seven or more, you have exceptional eyesight or a very dark "Bortle 1" sky.
- Use "Averted Vision": Look slightly to the side of the cluster rather than directly at it. Your peripheral vision is more sensitive to light and will make the cluster "pop" and look much brighter.
- Grab 10x50 Binoculars: This is the "sweet spot" for the Pleiades. A telescope often zooms in too much, losing the context. Binoculars make them look like sparkling sapphires on black velvet.
- Check the Calendar: The best time to see them is from November through February. By March, they start sinking into the western horizon shortly after sunset.
The seven sisters stars aren't just a navigation tool or a cool photo op. They are a bridge to our ancestors. Whether it’s a story about seven girls escaping a bear or a sophisticated map for the Māori New Year, these stars have been watching us for as long as we’ve been human. Next time you see that blue smudge in the sky, remember you’re looking at a 100,000-year-old mystery.