A blue-whitestar falling within the western reaches of the famous Pleiadescluster, Taygeta is the sixth brightest of the stars in the cluster, and the faintest of the Pleiades that most observers can discern with the naked eye. The name Taygeta comes from Greek mythology, as the name of a daughter of Atlas and Pleione who became the mother of Lacedæmon, the founder of Sparta.
Taygeta lies on the northeastern edge of the Pleiadescluster, northeastward from the slightly brighterstarMaia. At an estimated distance of some 342 light years, Taygeta is among the closest of the Pleiades'stars to the Sun, with the other stars of the cluster and their associated nebulosity lying considerably farther away. Imagery provided by Aladin sky atlas
Like the other stars that make up the Pleiades, Taygeta is a young star of the B-type or blueclassification, lying approximately 340 light years from the Sun. Taygeta is in fact a binary system, with two subgiants (each several times more massive than the Sun) following a close mutual orbit less than five AU apart. These two massivestars probably form the heart of a ternary system, with a third dwarfstar travelling a millennia-long orbit thousands of AU distant from the main pair, though the status of this dwarfstar (designated Taygeta B) as part of the system is not established with certainty.
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