It is strongly connected to ancient mythologies from different peoples, and knowledge of Taurus is argued by some academics to stretch back to 15, BC. The reason for this is because there is a painting within a French cave that was made around the same time, and thought to depict the Taurus bull constellation. In Babylonian mythology, Taurus is connected with the Bull of Heaven from a famous epic poem called the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The same bull with heavenly connotations has been traced within Egyptian beliefs. But in Greek mythology, Taurus is connected with something different. In fact, Taurus is most often associated with Zeus himself. This is because Zeus is said to have transformed into a white bull to abduct the princess Europa.
Naturally, a bull can be positioned in so many ways, so how does the Taurus star constellation portray the bull image? The reason for this may be linked with Greek mythology. Some peoples believed the constellation image had a bull with horns pointing upwards, due to the aforementioned heavenly references, while others depict the horns facing forwards. These details are not seen with the naked eye and stargazers need to be imaginative to stand in the shoes of our ancient ancestors peering at the sky.
Taurus has 19 stars that are considered the main stars of the constellation. Here are some of the most interesting stars in the constellation:. The Taurus star constellation is situated in the northern sky in the first quadrant, i.
It neighbours lots of other constellations with interesting mythology and symbolism, including Gemini, Aries, Cancer, Virgo, Leo and many other well-known star constellations. It will disappear in the north west direction. Taurus will reappear in the north east sometime in September, just above the horizon.
As the months go on, it will be in a north westerly direction. As the southern hemisphere will be in summer when Taurus is available, you will need to styay out a little later to be able to see it. If you can wait until 9pm then you should be able to see it in a north-easterly direction. As the night goes on, the constellation will move across the sky in a north westerly direction.
Another story was that Io, a consort of Zeus was disguised as a bull so as not to be spotted by Hera but Hera did see. Hera sent a Gadfly to scare the bull away and it fell into the river. Ian Ridpath. A third story has King Minos asking for a bull from Poseidon to be sacrificed to confirm his rule. When the bull arrived, Minos couldn't bring himself to killing the bull and killed another bull instead, therefore breaking the deal with Poseidon.
Poseidon in revenge caused Pasiphae, Minos's wife to full in love with bull and sire a child, the child would be more commonly known as Minotaur. The final Taurus mythology resolves around the feats that Hercules was forced to carry out as punishment for killing his wife and child.
Hercules was sent to capture the Cretan Bull which was terrorising Minos. Hercules sought and gained permission to capture the bull and take it away.
The constellation contains two famous star clusters , the Pleiades and the Hyades clusters. The Pleiades is probably the more famous but the Hyades are much closer to the Earth. The Pleiades is also known as the Seven Sisters. Both are just about visible as a cloud with the naked eye. There are 28 Meteor Showers that occur during the year within this constellation based on information gathered from Adam Mickiewicz University Poland.
The list below are major ones and which I have a date period for. The following list contains the stars that make up the constellation. For a larger list of stars in the entire constellation area, please visit the For a list of named stars, that is stars that don't start HD or HIP, please visit Taurus Star List page.
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In the email will be a link to unsubscribe to further notifications. A cave painting in Lascaux, France from the year 15, BC already has it represented as a bull.
In Babylonian mythology, there is a very famous poem called the Epic of Gilgamesh. In this story, the Babylonian goddess of love, Ishtar , sends the bull in the sky to attack Gilgamesh. In Egyptian mythology, the constellation was also depicted as a bull and it even formed part of their own version of the zodiac. In Greek Mythology, the bull is associated with two separate stories. First, it is associated with the god Zeus, who transforms into a white bull.
Other people associate it with the bull in the story of Heracles Hercules. The most famous asterisms are the big dipper and the norther cross which form part of the Ursa Major and Cygnus constellations respectively. In Greek mythology, it represents a group of nymphs female spirits that included the daughters of the titan Atlas. The Pleiades is a more known asterism formed by seven stars that are located very close to each other.
In the Pleiades myth, they are seven girls who are companions to the goddess Artemis. To this day, the stars that represent Maia, Electra, and Alcyone still carry their names.
You can read more details about Taurus myth at greekmythology. Wikipedia has a list of all the stars that make up Taurus. If you want to look at Taurus in the sky yourself, we have an article on how to find it easily. Elena is a Canadian journalist and researcher. She has been looking at the sky for years and hopes to introduce more people to the wonderful hobby that is astronomy.
In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about the constellation of Taurus. Where does the name Taurus come from? Who discovered Taurus and when was it discovered? How many stars does Taurus have? When is Taurus visible in the sky? November to January are the best months to observe it.
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