The Hyades (;

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

Ὑάδες, also known as Caldwell 41, Collinder 50, or Melotte 25) is the nearest

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

and one of the best-studied

star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clust ...

s. Located about away from the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, it consists of a roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, place of origin, chemical characteristics, and motion through space.Bouvier J, Kendall T, Meeus G, Testi L, Moraux E, Stauffer JR, James D, Cuillandre J-C, Irwin J, McCaughrean MJ, Baraffe I, Bertin E. (2008) Brown dwarfs and very low mass stars in the Hyades cluster: a dynamically evolved mass function. ''Astronomy & Astrophysics'', 481: 661-672. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008A%26A...481..661B. From the perspective of observers on

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

, the Hyades Cluster appears in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Taurus Taurus is Latin for 'bull' and may refer to: * Taurus (astrology), the astrological sign * Taurus (constellation), one of the constellations of the zodiac * Taurus (mythology), one of two Greek mythological characters named Taurus * ''Bos taurus ...

, where its brightest stars form a "V" shape along with the still-brighter

Aldebaran Aldebaran (Arabic: “The Follower”, "الدبران") is the brightest star in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. It has the Bayer designation α Tauri, which is Latinized to Alpha Tauri and abbreviated Alpha Tau or α Tau. Aldebar ...

. However, Aldebaran is unrelated to the Hyades, as it is located much closer to Earth and merely happens to lie along the same line of sight. The five brightest member stars of the Hyades have consumed the hydrogen fuel at their cores and are now

evolving Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation t ...

into

giant star A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main sequence, main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same effective temperature, surface temperature.Giant star, entry in ''Astronomy Encyclopedia'', ed. Patrick Moo ...

s. Four of these stars, with

Bayer designation A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. ...

Gamma Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; ''gámma'') is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter re ...

, Delta 1,

Epsilon Epsilon (, ; uppercase , lowercase or lunate ; el, έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a mid front unrounded vowel or . In the system of Greek numerals it also has the value five. It was der ...

, and

Theta Tauri Theta Tauri (θ Tauri, abbreviated Theta Tau, θ Tau) is a wide double star in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Hyades open cluster. θ Tauri is composed of two 3rd magnitude stars, designated Theta Tauri (Theta Tauri B ...

, form an asterism that is traditionally identified as the head of Taurus the Bull. The fifth of these stars is Theta¹ Tauri, a tight naked-eye companion to the brighter Theta² Tauri. Epsilon Tauri, known as ''Ain'' (the "Bull's Eye"), has a

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...

exoplanet candidate,Sato B, Izumiura H, Toyota E, et al. (2007) A planetary companion to the Hyades giant Epsilon Tauri. ''Astrophysical Journal'', 661: 527-531. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ApJ...661..527S. the first planet to be found in any open cluster. The age of the Hyades is estimated to be about 625 million years. The core of the cluster, where stars are the most densely packed, has a radius of , and the cluster's

tidal radius A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars. Globular clusters are bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of membe ...

– where the stars become more strongly influenced by the gravity of the surrounding

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

galaxy – is . However, about one-third of confirmed member stars have been observed well outside the latter boundary, in the cluster's extended halo; these stars are probably in the process of escaping from its gravitational influence.

Location and motion

The cluster is sufficiently close to the Sun that its distance can be directly measured by observing the amount of parallax shift of the member stars as the Earth orbits the Sun. This measurement has been performed with great accuracy using the

Hipparcos ''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial obj ...

satellite and the ''

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

''. An alternative method of computing the distance is to fit the cluster members to a standardized infrared color–magnitude diagram for stars of their type, and use the resulting data to infer their intrinsic brightness. Comparing this data to the brightness of the stars as seen from Earth allows their distances to be estimated. Both methods have yielded a distance estimate of to the cluster center.van Leeuwen, F
"Parallaxes and proper motions for 20 open clusters as based on the new Hipparcos catalogue"
''A\&A'', 2009Majaess, D.; Turner, D.; Lane, D.; Krajci, T
"Deep Infrared ZAMS Fits to Benchmark Open Clusters Hosting delta Scuti Stars"
''Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers'', 2011McArthur, Barbara E.; Benedict, G. Fritz; Harrison, Thomas E.; van Altena, Willia
"Astrometry with the Hubble Space Telescope: Trigonometric Parallaxes of Selected Hyads"
''AJ'', 2011 The fact that these independent measurements agree makes the Hyades an important rung on the

cosmic distance ladder The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the succession of methods by which astronomers determine the distances to celestial objects. A ''direct'' distance measurement of an astronomical object is possible o ...

method for estimating the distances of extragalactic objects. The stars of the Hyades are more enriched in heavier elements than our

and other ordinary stars in the

solar neighborhood The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), also known as the Local Fluff, is an interstellar cloud roughly across, through which the Solar System is moving. This feature overlaps a region around the Sun referred to as the solar neighborhood. It is unk ...

, with the overall cluster

metallicity In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as a ...

measured at +0.14. The Hyades Cluster is related to other stellar groups in the Sun's vicinity. Its age, metallicity, and

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

coincide with those of the larger and more distant Praesepe Cluster, and the trajectories of both clusters can be traced back to the same region of space, indicating a common origin. Another associate is the

Hyades Stream The Hyades Stream (or Hyades moving group) is a large collection of scattered stars that also share a similar trajectory with the Hyades Cluster. In 1869, Richard A. Proctor observed that numerous stars at large distances from the Hyades share a ...

, a large collection of scattered stars that also share a similar trajectory with the Hyades Cluster. Recent results have found that at least 15% of stars in the Hyades Stream share the same chemical fingerprint as the Hyades cluster stars. However, about 85% of stars in the Hyades Stream have been shown to be completely unrelated to the original cluster on the grounds of dissimilar age and metallicity; their common motion is attributed to tidal effects of the massive rotating

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

at the center of the

galaxy.Famaey B, Pont F, Luri X, Udry S, Mayor M, Jorissen A. (2007) The Hyades stream: an evaporated cluster or an intrusion from the inner disk? ''Astronomy & Astrophysics'', 461: 957-962. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007A%26A...461..957F. Among the remaining members of the Hyades Stream, the

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

host star

Iota Horologii Iota Horologii, Latinized from ι Horologii, is a yellow-hued star approximately 56.5 light-years away in the Horologium constellation. The star is classified as a G0Vp yellow dwarf (it has previously been classified as G3 and a sub ...

has recently been proposed as an escaped member of the primordial Hyades Cluster., announced in The Hyades are unrelated to two other nearby stellar groups, the

Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of ...

and the Ursa Major Stream, which are easily visible to the

naked eye Naked eye, also called bare eye or unaided eye, is the practice of engaging in visual perception unaided by a magnifying, light-collecting optical instrument, such as a telescope or microscope, or eye protection. Vision corrected to normal ...

under clear dark skies. Hyades

History

Together with the other eye-catching open star cluster of the

, the Hyades form the

Golden Gate of the Ecliptic The Golden Gate of the Ecliptic is an asterism in the constellation Taurus that has been known for several thousand years. The constellation is built by the two eye-catching open star clusters of the Pleiades and the Hyades that form the two pos ...

, which has been known for several thousand years. In Greek mythology, the

Hyades Hyades may refer to: * Hyades (band) *Hyades (mythology) *Hyades (star cluster) The Hyades (; Greek Ὑάδες, also known as Caldwell 41, Collinder 50, or Melotte 25) is the nearest open cluster and one of the best-studied star clusters. Loca ...

were the five daughters of

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

and half-sisters to the

. After the death of their brother, Hyas, the weeping sisters were transformed into a cluster of stars that was afterwards associated with rain. As a naked-eye object, the Hyades cluster has been known since prehistoric times. It is mentioned by numerous Classical authors from

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

.Information on the Hyades from SEDS
/ref> In Book 18 of the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odysse ...

'' the stars of the Hyades appear along with the

Ursa Major Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear," referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa ...

, and Orion on the shield that the god

Hephaistos Hephaestus (; eight spellings; grc-gre, Ἥφαιστος, Hḗphaistos) is the Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire (compare, however, with Hestia), and volcanoes.Walter Burk ...

made for

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus ( grc-gre, Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and the central character of Homer's ''Iliad''. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, k ...

.Homer. ''The Iliad.'' Translated by Richmond Lattimore. University of Chicago Press, 1951. In England the cluster was known as the "April Rainers" from an association with April showers, as recorded in the folk song "

Green Grow the Rushes, O Green Grow the Rushes, O (alternatively "Ho" or "Oh") (also known as "The Twelve Prophets", "The Carol of the Twelve Numbers", "The Teaching Song", "The Dilly Song", or "The Ten Commandments"), is an English folk song (Roud #133). It is sometimes ...

". The cluster was probably first catalogued by

Giovanni Battista Hodierna Giovanni Battista Hodierna, also spelled as Odierna (April 13, 1597 – April 6, 1660) was an Italian astronomer at the court of Giulio Tomasi, Duke of Palma (Palma di Montechiaro). He compiled a catalogue of comets and other celestial object ...

in 1654, and it subsequently appeared in many star atlases of the 17th and 18th centuries. However,

Charles Messier Charles Messier (; 26 June 1730 – 12 April 1817) was a French astronomer. He published an astronomical catalogue consisting of 110 nebulae and star clusters, which came to be known as the ''Messier objects''. Messier's purpose f ...

did not include the Hyades in his 1781 catalog of deep sky objects. It therefore lacks a Messier number, unlike many other, more distant open clusters – e.g., M44 (Praesepe), M45 (

), and M67. In 1869, the astronomer R.A. Proctor observed that numerous stars at large distances from the Hyades share a similar motion through space.Zuckerman B, Song I. (2004) Young stars near the Sun. ''Annual Review of Astronomy & Astrophysics.'' Volume 42, 685-721. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ARA%26A..42..685Z. In 1908,

Lewis Boss Lewis Boss (26 October 1846 – 5 October 1912) was an American astronomer. He served as the director of the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York. Early life Boss was born in Providence, Rhode Island to Samuel P. and Lucinda (née Jos ...

reported almost 25 years of observations to support this premise, arguing for the existence of a co-moving group of stars that he called the Taurus Stream (now generally known as the Hyades Stream or Hyades Supercluster). Boss published a chart that traced the scattered stars' movements back to a common point of convergence.Boss L. (1908) Convergent of a moving cluster in Taurus. ''Astronomical Journal'', 26: 31-36. Full text link at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1908AJ.....26...31B. By the 1920s, the notion that the Hyades shared a common origin with the Praesepe Cluster was widespread,Hertzsprung E. (1922) On the motions of Praesepe and of the Hyades. ''Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands'', Vol. 1, p.150. Full text link at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1922BAN.....1..150H. with Rudolf Klein-Wassink noting in 1927 that the two clusters are "probably cosmically related."Klein-Wassink WJ. (1927) The proper motion and the distance of the Praesepe cluster. ''Publications of the Kapteyn Astronomical Laboratory Groningen'', 41: 1-48. Full text link at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1927PGro...41....1K For much of the twentieth century, scientific study of the Hyades focused on determining its distance, modeling its evolution, confirming or rejecting candidate members, and characterizing individual stars.

Morphology and evolution

All stars form in clusters, but most clusters break up less than 50 million years after star formation concludes. The astronomical term for this process is "

evaporation Evaporation is a type of vaporization that occurs on the surface of a liquid as it changes into the gas phase. High concentration of the evaporating substance in the surrounding gas significantly slows down evaporation, such as when humidi ...

." Only extremely massive clusters, orbiting far from the

Galactic Center The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact rad ...

, can avoid evaporation over extended timescales. As one such survivor, the Hyades Cluster probably contained a much larger star population in its infancy. Estimates of its original mass range from 800 to 1,600 times the mass of our Sun (), implying still larger numbers of individual stars.Weideman V, Jordan S, Iben I, Casertano S. (1992) White dwarfs in the halo of the Hyades Cluster – The case of the missing white dwarfs. ''Astronomical Journal,'' 104: 1876-1891. 1992AJ....104.1876W.

Star populations

Theory predicts that a young cluster of this size should give birth to stars and substellar objects of all spectral types, from huge, hot O stars down to dim

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most ...

s. However, studies of the Hyades show that it is deficient in stars at both extremes of mass. At an age of 625 million years, the cluster's main sequence turn-off is about , meaning that all heavier stars have evolved into subgiants, giants, or

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

s, while less massive stars continue fusing hydrogen on the main sequence. Extensive surveys have revealed a total of 8 white dwarfs in the cluster core,Böhm-Vitense E. (1995) White dwarf companions to Hyades F stars. ''Astronomical Journal,'' 110: 228-231. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995AJ....110..228B. corresponding to the final evolutionary stage of its original population of B-type stars (each about ). The preceding evolutionary stage is currently represented by the cluster's four red clump giants. Their present spectral type is K0 III, but all are actually "retired A stars" of around .Johnson JA, Fischer D, Marcy GW, Wright JT, Driscoll P, Butler RP, Hekker S, Reffert S, Vogt SS. (2007a) Retired A stars and their companions: Exoplanets orbiting three intermediate-mass subgiants. ''Astrophysical Journal,'' 665: 785-793. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ApJ...665..785J. An additional "white giant" of type A7 III is the primary of θ² Tauri, a

binary Binary may refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * Binary number, a representation of numbers using only two digits (0 and 1) * Binary function, a function that takes two arguments * Binary operation, a mathematical operation that t ...

system that includes a less massive companion of spectral type A; this pair is visually associated with θ¹ Tauri, one of the four red giants, which also has an A-type binary companion. The remaining population of confirmed cluster members includes numerous bright stars of spectral types A (at least 21), F (about 60), and G (about 50). All these star types are concentrated much more densely within the tidal radius of the Hyades than within an equivalent 10-parsec radius of the Earth. By comparison, our local 10-parsec sphere contains only 4 A stars, 6 F stars, and 21 G stars.Research Consortium on Nearby Stars (RECONS). Ten-parsec census at http://joy.chara.gsu.edu/RECONS/census.posted.htm. The Hyades' cohort of lower-mass stars – spectral types K and M – remains poorly understood, despite proximity and long observation. At least 48 K dwarfs are confirmed members, along with about a dozen

M dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

s of spectral types M0-M2. Additional M dwarfs have been proposed, but few are later than M3, and only about 12 brown dwarfs are currently reported.Hogan E, Jameson R F, Casewell SL, Osbourne, SL, Hambly NC. (2008) L dwarfs in the Hyades. ''Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,'' 388 (2) 495-499. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008MNRAS.388..495H. This deficiency at the bottom of the mass range contrasts strongly with the distribution of stars within 10 parsecs of the Solar System, where at least 239 M dwarfs are known, comprising about 76% of all neighborhood stars.

Mass segregation

The observed distribution of stellar types in the Hyades Cluster demonstrates a history of

mass segregation In astronomy, dynamical mass segregation is the process by which heavier members of a gravitationally bound system, such as a star cluster, tend to move toward the center, while lighter members tend to move farther away from the center. Equipar ...

. With the exception of its white dwarfs, the cluster's central contain only star systems of at least . This tight concentration of heavy stars gives the Hyades its overall structure, with a core defined by bright, closely packed systems and a halo consisting of more widely separated stars in which later spectral types are common. The core radius is 2.7 parsecs (8.8 light-years, a little more than the distance between the Sun and

Sirius Sirius is the list of brightest stars, brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek language, Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinisation ...

), while the half-mass radius, within which half the cluster's mass is contained, is . The tidal radius of represents the Hyades' average outer limit, beyond which a star is unlikely to remain gravitationally bound to the cluster core. Stellar evaporation occurs in the cluster halo as smaller stars are scattered outward by more massive insiders. From the halo they may then be lost to tides exerted by the Galactic core or to shocks generated by collisions with drifting hydrogen clouds. In this way the Hyades probably lost much of its original population of M dwarfs, along with substantial numbers of brighter stars.

Stellar multiplicity

Another result of mass segregation is the concentration of binary systems in the cluster core. More than half of the known F and G stars are binaries, and these are preferentially located within this central region. As in the immediate Solar neighborhood, binarity increases with increasing stellar mass. The fraction of binary systems in the Hyades increases from 26% among K-type stars to 87% among A-type stars. Hyades binaries tend to have small separations, with most binary pairs in shared orbits whose

semimajor axes In geometry, the major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter: a line segment that runs through the center and both foci, with ends at the two most widely separated points of the perimeter. The semi-major axis (major semiaxis) is the longe ...

are smaller than 50

astronomical unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and approximately equal to or 8.3 light-minutes. The actual distance from Earth to the Sun varies by about 3% as Earth orbits t ...

s.Patience J, Ghez AM, Reid IN, Weinberger AJ, Matthews K. (1998) The multiplicity of the Hyades and its implications for binary star formation and evolution. ''Astronomical Journal,'' 115: 1972-1988. Abstract at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1998AJ....115.1972P. Although the exact ratio of single to multiple systems in the cluster remains uncertain, this ratio has considerable implications for our understanding of its population. For example, Perryman and colleagues list about 200 high-probability Hyades members. If the binary fraction is 50%, the total cluster population would be at least 300 individual stars.

Future evolution

Surveys indicate that 90% of open clusters dissolve less than 1 billion years after formation, while only a tiny fraction survive for the present age of the Solar System (about 4.6 billion years). Over the next few hundred million years, the Hyades will continue to lose both mass and membership as its brightest stars evolve off the main sequence and its dimmest stars evaporate out of the cluster halo. It may eventually be reduced to a remnant containing about a dozen star systems, most of them binary or multiple, which will remain vulnerable to ongoing dissipative forces.

Brightest stars

This is a list of Hyades cluster member stars that are fourth magnitude or brighter.

In culture

The poem "

Ulysses Ulysses is one form of the Roman name for Odysseus, a hero in ancient Greek literature. Ulysses may also refer to: People * Ulysses (given name), including a list of people with this name Places in the United States * Ulysses, Kansas * Ulysse ...

," by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

, contains the line "''Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades// Vext the dim sea'' ..." In the works of

Robert W. Chambers Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 – December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories titled '' The King in Yellow'', published in 1895. Life Chambers was born in Brooklyn, New York, t ...

, H. P. Lovecraft, and others, the fictional city of

Carcosa Carcosa is a fictional city in Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886). The ancient and mysterious city is barely described and is viewed only in hindsight (after its destruction) by a character who once lived there. Americ ...

is located on a planet in the Hyades. A 2018

archaeoastronomical Archaeoastronomy (also spelled archeoastronomy) is the interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary study of how people in the past "have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used these phenomena and what role the sky played in their cult ...

paper suggested that the Hyades may have inspired the

Norse myth Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern period. ...

Ragnarök In Norse mythology, (; non, Ragnarǫk) is a series of events, including a great battle, foretelling the death of numerous great figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, and Loki), natural disasters, and the submers ...

. Astronomer Donald Olson questioned these findings, pointing out minor errors in the paper's astronomical data.

References

External links

*
Information on the Hyades from SEDS

(2000-09-29)
WEBDA open cluster database website for Hyades cluster
– E. Paunzen (Univ. Vienna)
Distance to the Hyades undergraduate lab
– J. Lucey (University of Durham) *
Hyades at Constellation Guide
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hyades (Star Cluster) Open clusters Taurus (constellation) 041b