Make a note of Aldebaran, the brightest star of Taurus, which means ‘eye of the bull’ in Arabic
Search out one of the very oldest recognised constellations this week. Taurus – the bull of heaven – was first recorded by the Babylonians in about 1000BC but other cultures may have associated this grouping of stars with a bull much earlier. At the Lascaux network of caves, in France, 17,000-year-old cave art shows what appears to be similar patterns to the stars of Taurus surrounded by a magnificent rendition of a bull.
Taurus is a zodiacal constellation, meaning that the sun’s path through the sky passes through its boundaries. Preceding Taurus on the zodiac is Aries, the ram, and following it is Cancer, the crab.
About Author
More Stories
I keep fantasising about living in total solitude in a forest
Microsoft unveils chip it says could bring quantum computing within years
Five years on from the pandemic, the right’s fake Covid narrative has been turbo-charged into the mainstream | Laura Spinney