More Precise Distance Is Calculated for Pleiades
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Caltech astronomers have measured the distance to a cluster of stars known as the Pleiades and have concluded that similar measurements made by a European satellite called Hipparcos were off by as much as 10%.
By comparing the relative positions of the cluster when Earth was at opposite ends of its orbit, Xiaopei Pan and Mike Shao concluded that the cluster is 434 to 446 light-years from Earth, a high degree of precision for such measurements. They reported their finding in the Jan. 22 issue of Nature.
