54 Fun Facts About Taurus

Astrologers say people born under Taurus share which trait with the sign's animal?

Stubbornness: astrologers give it a kinder spin, saying what others see as digging in, a Taurus sees as dedication to seeing a task through.

Which zodiac sign comes immediately after Taurus?

Gemini: the order follows the Sun's yearly path through the sky, and the Twins' stars sit just east of the bull's.

Which planet is said to rule Taurus in Western astrology?

Venus, named for the goddess of love and beauty, is why astrologers credit Taurus with a taste for comfort and the finer things in life.

Taurus belongs to which of the four classical elements?

Earth: astrologers say the element makes its signs grounded and practical, which is why Taurus gets a reputation for valuing stability and hard work.

Taurus falls in the middle of a season, which gives it which astrological modality?

Fixed: astrologers read the label as steadfast and loyal, the sign that keeps a season going rather than starting or ending it.

Which sign sits directly opposite Taurus on the zodiac wheel?

Scorpio sits 180 degrees away, so whenever the Sun is in Taurus the full Moon falls in Scorpio.

Which two signs share Taurus's element?

Virgo and Capricorn: the three sit 120 degrees apart on the wheel, an angle astrologers call a trine and read as an easy, friendly link.

Astrologers call the Moon 'exalted' in Taurus, meaning it is especially what there?

Strong: the ancient philosopher Porphyry set the idea beside another old belief, that the Moon itself was known as a bull.

Horoscope columns place the Sun in Taurus between roughly which dates?

April 20 to May 20: guides disagree by a day at either end, because the Sun crosses into the sign at an exact moment that shifts slightly from year to year.

Why does the Sun now reach the constellation Taurus about a month later than the astrological sign's dates?

Earth's axis slowly wobbles like a spinning top, one circuit every 26,000 years or so, which has dragged the signs about one constellation out of step since they were set.

Medieval 'zodiac man' charts assign the first sign to the head and work downwards, so which body part belongs to Taurus?

The neck: doctors once consulted these charts before bloodletting, matching each part of the body to the heavens before they dared to open a vein.

The name Taurus is simply the word for 'bull' in which ancient language?

Latin: chemists borrowed the same word to name taurine, now an energy drink staple, because the compound was first found in ox bile.

Which Italian carmaker's founder, a Taurus, chose a charging bull for the badge on his cars?

Lamborghini: the firm credits founder Ferruccio's star sign for the badge, and he was building tractors long before he ever turned to sports cars.

Which orange star, the brightest in Taurus, marks the bull's glaring eye?

Aldebaran is so bright and prominent that a tradition usually credited to ancient Persia honours it as one of just four 'royal stars' in the whole sky.

What does the Arabic name of the bull's eye star in Taurus mean?

The follower: it rises shortly after the Pleiades and trails them across the sky all night, which is probably how it earned the name.

Star maps show Taurus charging head-down at which neighbouring constellation, a figure raising a club and shield?

Orion: the hunter squares up to the charging bull, and the three stars of his belt point straight towards its eye.

The bull's eye star is nearing the end of its life as what kind of star?

Red giant: with the hydrogen in its core used up, it has swollen to about 44 times the Sun's width.

The Pleiades cluster in Taurus is popularly known by what nickname?

The Seven Sisters: most people can pick out only six, which the Greeks explained with tales of one sister hiding her face in shame or grief.

In ancient Greece, the dawn rising of the Pleiades marked the start of the working season for which group?

Sailors: one theory says the cluster's very name comes from the Greek plein, 'to sail', though others trace it to their mythical mother, Pleione.

Which country made Matariki, the Pleiades' dawn return, a public holiday in 2022?

New Zealand: Matariki is the Māori name for the cluster, and its reappearance before dawn in June or July marks the Māori new year.

The Greeks pictured the Hyades as weeping nymphs, and took the cluster's rising as a sign of which weather?

Rain: the nymphs were said to be mourning their dead brother Hyas, though scholars suspect the name really comes from the Greek for piglets.

Together with the bull's bright eye star, the Hyades' brightest members form what letter-like shape?

A V marks the bull's face, but the bright eye at one tip is an impostor: it lies less than half as far away as the cluster behind it.

Classical star maps show only which part of the bull in the constellation Taurus?

Its front half: storytellers said the rest was hidden beneath the waves as Zeus, disguised as the animal, swam out to sea with a princess on his back.

What kind of object sits at the heart of the Crab Nebula, sweeping Earth with a beam like a lighthouse?

A pulsar: its spin pours out the energy that keeps the whole cloud glowing, so the nebula has a power station at its heart.

The Crab Nebula in Taurus is what kind of object?

A supernova remnant: the wreckage is still flying outward at more than 1,000 kilometres a second, so photos taken years apart show it growing.

In 1054, astronomers in which country recorded a 'guest star' where the Crab Nebula now lies?

China: court astronomers logged a newcomer so bright that it stayed visible in broad daylight for more than three weeks.

Which comet hunter listed the Crab Nebula first in his famous catalogue?

Charles Messier was comet hunting in 1758 when the fuzzy patch fooled him, and the false alarm pushed him to list such decoys.

The Crab Nebula got its name from an 1840s sketch made at the Earl of Rosse's castle telescope in which country?

Ireland: the third Earl of Rosse drew it at Birr Castle, where he soon built a 72-inch giant, the largest telescope in the world at the time.

The collapsed star inside the Crab Nebula spins about 30 times every what?

Second: each turn sweeps its beam past Earth, so telescopes see the star blink 30 times a second, in everything from radio waves to gamma rays.

El Nath, whose Arabic name means 'the butting one', marks which part of the bull in Taurus?

A horn tip: look at it and you are facing almost exactly away from the centre of the Milky Way, towards the galaxy's outer edge.

Ptolemy counted El Nath as shared between Taurus and which neighbouring constellation, the Charioteer?

Auriga: the sharing ended in 1930, when astronomers drew official constellation borders and handed the star to the bull alone.

T Tauri, a restless star lighting up a small nebula in Taurus, is the prototype for which class of stars?

Newborn pre-main-sequence stars: still too cool inside to fuse hydrogen as the Sun does, T Tauri shines instead by slowly shrinking under its own gravity.

In Greek myth, which god sent a white bull from the sea, then took revenge when a king would not sacrifice it?

Poseidon sent the animal to help the king secure his throne, expecting it back as a sacrifice, but the king kept it alive instead.

The Taurid meteors are debris shed by what kind of object?

A comet: Encke laps the Sun every 3.3 years and has strewn a trail so wide that Earth takes weeks to cross it.

The Taurid meteor shower has earned which nickname from the time of year it peaks?

Halloween fireballs: the stream carries pebble-sized chunks rather than tiny grains, so its meteors often flare brighter than any planet.

In Greek myth, Zeus took the form of a white bull to abduct which Phoenician princess?

Europa climbed onto the tame-looking animal's back, and it plunged into the sea with her; the continent of Europe may take its name from her.

In Greek myth, Zeus, disguised as a bull, swam off with a princess on his back and landed on which island?

Crete: she later married the island's king, who adopted the sons she had with Zeus.

Which of the abducted princess's sons by Zeus became the legendary king who ordered the Labyrinth built?

Minos kept his authority beyond the grave: the Greeks said that after his death he became a judge of the dead in the underworld.

Which man of bronze, who guarded an island by hurling boulders at ships, was among Zeus's gifts to his abducted princess?

Talos: in one telling Zeus gave him to guard the island, which he circled three times a day until the single vein at his ankle was opened as he drove off the Argonauts.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which goddess sends the heavenly bull against Gilgamesh?

Ishtar had proposed marriage to the king and been turned down, so she demanded the beast from her father Anu to take her revenge.

Who fights alongside Gilgamesh to slay the great bull sent down from heaven?

Enkidu paid for the kill with his life: he dreamed that the gods had sentenced him to die for it, then fell ill and never recovered.

Which hero captured the Marathonian Bull, the beast Heracles had once caught as a labour?

Theseus: free again after the labour, the beast wandered to Marathon and ravaged the countryside until the young hero overpowered it.

A bull painted in which French cave has been proposed as an Ice Age star map of Taurus and the Pleiades?

Lascaux: researcher Michael Rappenglück pointed to a tight cluster of dots above the great bull's shoulder, sitting just where the Pleiades hang above Taurus in the sky.

Which space probe, the first to fly past Jupiter, is now drifting out of the Solar System towards Taurus?

Pioneer 10 fell silent in 2003 and would need about two million years to reach the bull's eye star it is heading for.

Stars in the Hyades were photographed during the 1919 solar eclipse to confirm which theory?

Einstein's general relativity: Arthur Eddington's expedition to Príncipe found the cluster's starlight bent by the Sun's gravity, and the result made Einstein world-famous.

In which Old Testament book does God ask whether a man can 'bind the chains of the Pleiades'?

Job: God fires the question at him out of a storm, one of a barrage of wonders no human could manage.

Taurus is a zodiac constellation because it lies on which line, the Sun's yearly path across the sky?

The ecliptic: the Moon and planets keep close to the same line, which is why they regularly drift through Taurus and past its bright clusters.

In the Bronze Age the spring equinox point slipped out of Taurus into which neighbouring constellation, whose name it still carries?

Aries: astronomers still call the spot the First Point of Aries, even though it has long since drifted on into Pisces.

The Taurus Mountains, which share the constellation's name, run along the Mediterranean coast of which country?

Turkey: the range walls off the south coast from the high Anatolian plateau, and its most famous way through, in use since ancient times, is a pass called the Cilician Gates.

An alternative Greek myth identifies Taurus with which lover of Zeus, who was turned into a heifer?

Io was driven across the world by a gadfly that Hera sent, reaching Egypt, where she regained human form and bore Zeus a son, Epaphus.

Which Japanese car brand takes its name from the Pleiades and shows the cluster in its logo?

Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleiades, and the six-star badge nods to the companies that merged into parent Fuji Heavy Industries; Japan's 8.2-metre Subaru Telescope in Hawaii shares the name.

Who was the first astronomer to observe the Pleiades through a telescope, publishing his sketch in 1610?

Galileo Galilei published the drawing in Sidereus Nuncius in March 1610, showing that the cluster held far more stars than the naked eye could see.

Which Bronze Age artefact has a tight cluster of gold dots usually read as the Pleiades?

The Nebra sky disc was dug up illegally by metal detectorists in Germany in 1999 and recovered by police in Basel in 2002; it dates to about 1600 BC.

Long mistaken for leftover birth material, the Pleiades' blue haze is thought to be what instead?

Unrelated dust it is drifting through: the cloud moves at a different speed from the stars, whose own birth dust would have been blown away long ago.