Related papers: The Distance to Pleiades
Because of its proximity and its youth, the Pleiades open cluster of stars has been extensively studied and serves as a cornerstone for our understanding of the physical properties of young stars. This role is called into question by the…
Combining precise B,V photoelectric photometry and radial velocities, we have been able to derive a firm orbital solution and accurate physical parameters for the newly discovered eclipsing binary HD 23642 in the Pleiades open cluster. The…
We present radial velocity and new interferometric measurements of the double star Atlas, which permit, with the addition of published interferometric data, to precisely derive the orbital parameters of the binary system and the masses of…
The Pleiades is the best studied open cluster in the sky. It is one of the primary open clusters used to define the `zero-age main sequence,' and hence it serves as a cornerstone for programs which use main-sequence fitting to derive…
We present a calculation of the distance to the Pleiades star cluster based on data from Gaia DR2. We show that Gaia finally settles the discrepancy between the values derived from Hipparcos and other distance determinations. The technical…
Since the release of the Hipparcos catalog in 1997, the distance to the Pleiades open cluster has been heavily debated. The distance obtained from Hipparcos and those by alternative methods differ by 10 to 15 %. As accurate stellar…
Distances to stars are key to revealing a three-dimensional view of the Milky Way, yet their determination is a major challenge in astronomy. Whilst the brightest nearby stars benefit from direct parallax measurements, fainter stars are…
Classical Cepheid stars have been considered since more than a century as reliable tools to estimate distances in the universe thanks to their Period-Luminosity (P-L) relationship. Moreover, they are also powerful astrophysical…
We present a reanalysis of the light curves of HD 23642, a detached eclipsing binary star in the Pleiades open cluster, with emphasis on a detailed error analysis. We compare the masses and radii of the two stars to predictions of stellar…
One of the nearest and best studied open clusters, Pleiades is an important cornerstone of stellar astrophysics. Despite its role as reference coeval stellar population, its multiplicity properties remain vaguely determined. The combined…
Determining the expansion of the universe, i.e. the Hubble constant (H0) to better than 2% is required in order to understand the nature of dark energy. However, the two most accurate methods to do it, the cosmic microwave background and…
We discuss the problem of how to calculate the distance between two cosmological objects given their redshifts and angular separation on the sky. Although of a fundamental nature, this problem and its solution seem to lack a detailed…
The discrepancy between the Pleiades cluster distance based on Hipparcos parallaxes and main sequence fitting is investigated on the basis of Stromgren photometry of F-type stars. Field stars with the same metallicity as the Pleiades have…
The Pleiades is the most prominent open star cluster visible from Earth and an important benchmark for simple stellar populations, unified by common origin, age, and distance. Binary stars are its essential ingredient, yet their…
Hipparcos parallax measurements of stars in the Pleiades notoriously result in a cluster distance of 118 pc; ~10% shorter than the `classical' results of MS-fitting. In an earlier paper we developed a purely empirical MS-fitting method to…
Context. In the absence of complete kinematic data it has not previously been possible to furnish accurate lists of member stars for all moving groups. There has been an unresolved dispute concerning the apparent inconsistency of the…
Parallax is the most important astronomical method for determining the distances from the Earth to nearby stars. We present two hands-on activities that explore the concepts and practice of parallax measurement. The first activity is a…
Aims: We provide a new distance estimate for the Pleiades based on the moving cluster method, which will be useful to further discuss the so-called Pleiades distance controversy and compare it with the very precise parallaxes from the Gaia…
Knowing the distance of an astrophysical object is key to understanding it. However, at present, comparisons of theory and observations are hampered by precision (or lack thereof) in distance measurements or estimates. Putting the many…
An improved method for estimating distances to open clusters is presented and applied to Hipparcos data for the Pleiades and the Hyades. The method is applied in the context of the historic Pleiades distance problem, with a discussion of…