Its Hipparcos parallax has a statistical margin of error of about 5% and gave a distance 116 parsecs.

Merope is too bright for Gaia to have a reliable parallax for it, but calculations of the overall distance to the Pleiades cluster using Hipparcos, Gaia, Hubble Space Telescope, and other methods repeatedly show that the Hipparcos parallaxes suffered from some kind of systemic error, and the distance to the Pleiades is most likely around 135 parsecs.

It is classified as a Beta Cephei type variable star and its brightness varies by 0.01 magnitudes.

It appears brightest around Merope and is listed in the Index Catalogue as number IC 349.

The name Merope originates with Greek mythology; she is one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione known as the Pleiades.