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.
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