Starwatch: Taurus, the Bull of Heaven

Starwatch chart 2 November 2019 Taurus

Taurus is one of the oldest recognised constellations. Around 1000BC, the Babylonians included it in their star charts and called it GU₄.AN.NA, the Bull of Heaven. However, its association with a bull is possibly much older. Its pattern of stars has been recognised in the 17,000-year-old cave art of bulls found at Lascaux in France. The brightest star in Taurus is Aldebaran, a red giant star about 44 times the sun’s diameter and 65 light years away. It gives out 400 times the luminosity of the sun and can be seen as distinctly orange to the naked eye. Aldebaran marks the eye of the bull while the rest of the head is delineated by a V-shaped collection of stars that is a cluster called the Hyades. All of these stars formed in the same birth cloud. Taurus is one of the zodiacal constellations, which means that it is on the path that the sun, moon, and planets take as they journey through the night sky.