Glossary term: Taurus
Description: Taurus, "the bull", is a constellation in the Zodiac so it's close to the ecliptic – the intersection of the celestial sphere with the plane defined by the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. Hence, from our point of view here on Earth, we can regularly find the planets, and also the Sun, in this constellation – in the case of the Sun from May 14 to June 21. (Of course if the Sun is there, we cannot see the constellation's stars.) Taurus is one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union, and also one of the 48 classical constellations named by 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. In the northern hemisphere, it's prominently visible in the night sky in winter. Its brightest star is the reddish Aldebaran.
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
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Credit: Amirreza Kamkar/IAU OAE
License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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Credit: Mohamed Aboushelib/IAU OAE
License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope
License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope
License: CC-BY-4.0 Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
Taurus Constellation Map
Credit: Adapted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education from the original by IAU/Sky & Telescope