On the evening of Tuesday, April 8, 2008, skygazers will see the Moon move very close to The Seven Sisters, or also called the Pleiades. People of North America will have the best position for the viewing.

The western night sky will be the stage for the spectacular event as a 12% crescent Moon moves into conjunction with the Pleiades (pronounced PLEE-ah-deez). “Into conjunction” means that the Moon will appear along side with the Pleiades. At least, on Earth it will appear that they will be side-by-side.

In actuality, the Moon is about 238,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) away from Earth, while the Pleiades are about 400 light years away, where one light-year is the distance that light travels, on average, in one Earth-year while in the vacuum of space: about 5.88 trillion miles (9.48 trillion kilometers).

And, a “12% crescent Moon” means that approximately twelve percent of the Moon, as seen on Earth, will be illuminated by the Sun (while about 88% of the Moon is blocked out from the Sun's rays by the Earth).

For the month of April, the Moon will be “new” on April 5, at “first quarter” on April 12, “full” on April 20, and at “third quarter” on April 28.

The Pleiades, also called M45 and SED, are an open cluster of young stars in the constellation of Taurus (the Bull). There are about one thousand confirmed members of the group. A picture of the Pleiades appears at "NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day."
antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021201.html



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