Meet the Taurus Constellation: The Ancient Bull

Every year, Taurus returns to the autumn and winter skies of the Northern Hemisphere. In iconic illustrations, this constellation outlines the drama of a huge bull as he charges. Indeed with his easy-to-find V-shape horns, the Bull seems to be leaping right out of the sky, a pattern recognized in cultures across the world. With two famous star clusters and one of the sky’s most brilliant red stars, there’s plenty to seek out in this constellation.

The Stars of Taurus

Taurus is home to two bright stars — Aldebaran and Elnath — though the others are somewhat on the dim side. No matter; the outline of the Bull is still prominent, and the contrast between the bright stars near his head with the dimmer stars of his body only helps to emphasize the face of the animal.

• Alpha (α) Tauri – 0.8-magnitude Aldebaran is the constellation’s brightest star and one of the top 20 brightest stars in the sky. It’s generally taken to represent the eye of Taurus the Bull. It shines with an obvious red/orange tint, because Aldebaran is a textbook red giant — a Sun-like star that has long since expended its fuel for core hydrogen fusion. It expanded in response to that internal change, cooling its surface and turning it a redder color. Aldebaran is about 44 times wider than the Sun.
• Beta (β) Tauri – Elnath is the next-brightest star in Taurus at magnitude 1.65. Like Aldebaran, it’s a giant, but because it began with more mass, it has a higher temperature and thus a bluer color. It shines with 500 times our star’s luminosity.
• Eta (η) Tauri – Taurus hosts the famous Pleiades star cluster, and Alcyone is the brightest member of those “seven sisters.” Like Elnath, Alcyone is blue giant, but unlike Elnath it spins with such a ferocious speed that it literally flings its outermost gases into a disk that surrounds the star.

• Gamma (γ) Tauri – Taurus is home to a second spectacular star cluster: the Hyades. The group is quite large and makes up the face of the bull, near Aldebaran (the eye). The brightest of the Hyades (also known as Prima Hyadum) is the gamma, or fourth-brightest, star of Taurus. Like the others on this list, this yellow star is a giant, albeit one that’s fusing helium in its core instead of hydrogen. Its high iron content, like most of its Hyades compatriots, indicates it’s of a later generate than the Sun.
• Lambda (λ) Tauri – This system is a terrific example of an eclipsing binary, in whicha pair of stars orbit edge-on to Earth, so that they take turns blocking the light from each other. In the case of Lambda Tauri, the pair is consists of a B3-class star along with an A4 subgiant. The close pair eclipse each other about every four days, dropping the overall brightness of the system by a good half magnitude.

Mythology

Most of the modern-day Northern Hemisphere constellations are quite old, but Taurus in particular is particularly ancient. Early Mesopotamian civilization recognized the stars of Taurus as a pattern resembling a bull more than 6,000 years ago. These peoples associated its annual spring conjunction with the Sun as an indication of agricultural rebirth and the beginning of livestock breeding season. Cattle are one of the world’s earliest domesticated farm animals, so it’s no surprise that a young, agriculture-based civilization would choose to paint a picture in the night sky of an animal so important to them.

But the idea that the stars of Taurus represent a bull could possibly be even older — maybe much older. One of the famous Lascaux cave paintings in France features a large, bull-like figure oriented in the same direction as Taurus, with a series of dots above its shoulder in roughly the same location and configuration that the Pleiades would be if this is indeed a star map. If this idea is correct, it would push the date back to well over 10,000 years ago.

By the time of the ancient Greeks, around 500 BC, Taurus was still recognized as outlining a bull. But by that time the Greeks had attached their own series of stories to it. The most famous is probably where Zeus disguises himself as a swimming bull, which perhaps explains why Greek-inspired depictions show Taurus as only the front half of the bull — the rest of him is underwater.

The idea of Taurus as bull-like creature belongs not only to the ancients and Greek mythology, but also to the widespread Sioux tribes of the American plains. They took prominent stars from Canis Major, Orion, and Taurus to form the constellation of a buffalo — an animal of significant cultural and practical importance to them. The buffalo’s head falls right around the center of Taurus.

How to See Taurus

Taurus is located right on the ecliptic — the plane of the solar system on which the Sun, Moon, and planets orbit. Taurus is thus lost in the Sun’s glare in the spring and summer, but in autumn and winter it’s easy to find. The easiest guide to Taurus is Orion’s belt, which points west toward the Bull. When Orion is still below the horizon, instead seek out the fuzzy, star-studded Pleaides, which sits in the Taurus constellation’s center.

Given its location on the ecliptic, Taurus often plays host to the wandering planets, and it receives monthly visits from the Moon. The constellation also marks the focal point of the annual Taurids meteor shower. There’s always plenty to see around the ancient celestial bull.

*Note for winter 2024–25: When you go looking for Taurus, you’ll see brilliant Jupiter between Aldebaran and Elnath, outshining both of these stars. Don’t mistake the giant planet for Aldebaran!

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Daniel Johnson is a Wisconsin-based freelance writer and professional photographer and the co-author of over a dozen books. He’s a longtime amateur astronomer and fortunate enough to live in a rural region with excellent seeing conditions. You can view some of Dan’s photography (he does a lot of animals!) at www.foxhillphoto.com is a Wisconsin-based freelance writer and professional photographer and the co-author of over a dozen books. He’s a longtime amateur astronomer and fortunate enough to live in a rural region with excellent seeing conditions. You can view some of Dan’s photography (he does a lot of animals!) at www.foxhillphoto.com