Taurus the red-eyed bull, has a very ruddy eye, and if you ever saw it, you would even say… I can see a little tinge of red in his eye.
OK, so the constellation Taurus is no Rudolph, but it’s a prominent constellation during the holiday season, and it does have a reddish eye. The constellation is also leading in the wonderful bright stars and constellations of winter.
You can’t help but notice that during December the eastern sky is a lot more crowded with bright stars than any other part of the sky. This year the eastern sky has an extra bright ornament in it, the planet Mars.
There’s no mistaking our Martian neighbor. It’s the brightest starlike object in the sky this month, and has a distinctive red glow to it. Mars is nearing its closest approach to Earth in more than two years. I’ll have a lot more to tell you about Mars in next week’s Starwatch.
Taurus itself is a small but distinct constellation. You’ll see it in the early evening about halfway up in the eastern sky. I think the best way to find it is to first look for the Pleiades, a bright star cluster that jumps out at you in the eastern heavens. It almost looks like a tiny Little Dipper and, in fact, some people mistake it for the actual Little Dipper constellation.
The Pleiades, otherwise known as the Seven Sisters, is a large cluster of young stars, about 100 million years old and 440 light-years from our back yards. One light-year equals almost 6 trillion miles.
Once you’ve spotted the Pleiades in the east, look just below and a little to the left for a small, dim, but distinct arrow pointing to the right. That little arrow outlines the snout of Taurus the Bull. Aldebaran is the brightest star in Taurus, the holiday bull, and resides on the lower rung of the arrow.
The ruddy hue of Aldebaran was taken as a sign by many ancient civilizations of the ferocity of the celestial bull, but astronomically, it’s a sign that it’s a cooler star. If you look really closely at other individual stars in the night sky you can see that many of them have subtle color tinges.
Stars that have a reddish tinge to them are cooler than stars that have a blueish-white color. It’s like the flames in a campfire or fireplace. The redder flames on the outer edge of a fire are cooler than the blueish flames in the middle.
Even though Aldebaran is a cooler star, you wouldn’t be all that comfortable roasting marshmallows over it with a temperature of over 6,000 degrees.
The tale and tail of Taurus is one of deception. Zeus, the king of the gods and resident playboy of Greek mythology, used all his wiles to lure the ladies. One of his love targets was Princess Europa, the daughter of a Phoenician king.
Zeus spotted Europa enjoying a seaside outing with her friends and was smitten.
Being the king of the gods with all kinds of magical powers, Zeus turned himself into Taurus, a gorgeous white bull with golden horns, and wandered into Europa’s presence and knelt at her feet. The princess was delighted by Taurus’ beauty and tameness.
Europa felt so at ease with Taurus that she hopped on his back to ride him. This was the opportunity Zeus was waiting for. After a few gentle rides along the shore, the bull kicked it into gear and took off with Europa clinging on. She was frightened, but also excited by the adventure. Taurus reached the sea but that didn’t stop him. He charged into the waves with Europa still barely holding on. He swam all the way to the Greek island of Crete and finally stopped. Europa was wet, frightened and sunburned as she rolled off the bull. It was then that Zeus revealed his true identity to the princess.
That did it. Europa fell head over heels for Zeus, and they were quite an item for awhile. Europa bore three sons by Zeus, one of them who became King Minos of Crete.
Zeus was not exactly into long-term relationships and moved on to other conquests. According to some myths, he memorialized this escapade by putting his bull shape into the stars.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Washington Starwatch,” available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.
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