02 February, 1998. An Earth-orbiting satellite called Hipparcos has spent the past several years observing the positions of stars in order to measure parallaxes and proper motions. New data have been released for several hundred thousand stars that give parallaxes out to distances of 200 parsecs or more. Some stars and clusters such as the Pleiades appear to be up to 10% closer than believed; others are farther away. The results will alter our views of the ages and of the structure and evolution of the stars.