|
Alcyone (star)
Alcyone , designated η Tauri (Eta Tauri, abbreviated Eta Tau, η Tau), is a star in the constellation of Taurus. Approximately 440 light-years from the Sun, it is the brightest star in the Pleiades open cluster, which is a young cluster, around 100 million years old. There are a number of fainter stars very close to Alcyone, some of which are members of the same cluster. Nomenclature ''Eta Tauri'' is the star's Bayer designation. The name ''Alcyone'' originates in Greek mythology; she is one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione known as the Pleiades. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which included ''Alcyone'' for this star. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. In Chinese, (), meaning '' Hairy Head'', refers to a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taurus (constellation)
Taurus (Latin for "the Bull") is one of the constellations of the zodiac and is located in the northern celestial hemisphere. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the Northern Hemisphere's winter sky. It is one of the oldest constellations, dating back to the Early Bronze Age at least, when it marked the location of the Sun during the spring equinox. Its importance to the agricultural calendar influenced various bull figures in the mythologies of Ancient Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Its old astronomical symbol is (♉︎), which resembles a bull's head. A number of features exist that are of interest to astronomers. Taurus hosts two of the nearest open clusters to Earth, the Pleiades and the Hyades, both of which are visible to the naked eye. At first magnitude, the red giant Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation. In the northeast part of Taurus is Messier 1, more commonly known as the Crab Nebula, a supernova remn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities of deities, heroes, and mythological creatures, and the origins and significance of the ancient Greeks' own cult and ritual practices. Modern scholars study the myths to shed light on the religious and political institutions of ancient Greece, and to better understand the nature of myth-making itself. The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th century BC; eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey''. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the ''Theogony'' and the '' Works and Days'', contain accounts of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlas (star)
Atlas , designation 27 Tauri, is a Star system#Triple star systems, triple star system in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. It is a member of the Pleiades, an Open cluster, open star cluster (Messier object, M45). It is 431 light-years (132 parsecs) away, and is 3.92 degrees north of the ecliptic. Nomenclature ''27 Tauri'' is the star's Flamsteed designation. In 2016 the International Astronomical Union organized a IAU Working Group on Star Names, Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name ''Atlas'' for this star on 21 August 2016 and it is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. Mythology Atlas (mythology), Atlas was a Titan (mythology), Titan and the father of the Pleiades (Greek mythology), Pleiades sisters in Greek mythology. Properties Atlas is a triple star system, with the inner pair orbiting in under a year and the outer star orbiting in 260 years. The outer s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merope (star)
Merope , designated 23 Tauri (abbreviated 23 Tau), is a star in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Pleiades star cluster. It is approximately away. Distance Despite being one of the closest star clusters to Earth, the distance to the Pleiades and its member stars is still in dispute. The parallax of Merope itself is not known precisely enough to give an accurate distance. Its Hipparcos parallax has a statistical margin of error of about 5% and gave a distance 116 parsecs. This, and an overall distance to the Pleiades calculated from Hipparcos parallaxes of 120 parsecs, are inconsistent with other parallax measurements such as from Gaia. Merope is too bright for Gaia to have a reliable parallax for it, but calculations of the overall distance to the Pleiades cluster using Hipparcos, Gaia, Hubble Space Telescope, and other methods repeatedly show that the Hipparcos parallaxes suffered from some kind of systemic error, and the distance to the Pleia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maia (star)
Maia , designated 20 Tauri (abbreviated 20 Tau), is a star in the constellation of Taurus. It is a blue giant of spectral type B8 III, a chemically peculiar star, and the prototype of the Maia variable class of variable star. Maia is the fourth-brightest star in the Pleiades open star cluster (Messier 45), after Alcyone, Atlas and Electra. It is surrounded by one of the brighter reflection nebulae within the Pleiades, designated NGC 1432 and sometimes called the Maia Nebula. Nomenclature The name ''Maia'' originates with the el, Μαῖα and la, Maia. Maia is one of the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione in Greek mythology—stars which are also included in the Pleiades star cluster. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sterope (star)
The Sterope or Asterope system is a double star in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. Its components have the Flamsteed designations 21 Tauri and 22 Tauri, and are sometimes known as Sterope I and Sterope II, respectively. The International Astronomical Union applies the name ''Asterope'' specifically to 21 Tauri. The two stars are thus * 21 Tauri (or Sterope I, formally Asterope) * 22 Tauri (or Sterope II) The two stars are separated by 0.047° on the sky, which is equal to 2.82 arc-minutes and thus closer than the usual naked-eye resolution limit of 4 arc-min, giving an elongated appearance of the two together. Both are members of the Pleiades open star cluster ( M45) and approximately 440 light-years from the Sun. Nomenclature Asterope was one of the Pleiades sisters in Greek mythology. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN decided to attribute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
19 Tauri
19 Tauri is a double star in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Pleiades open star cluster ( M45). It consists of a binary pair designated 19 Tauri A together with a single star visual companion, 19 Tauri B. 'A's' two components are themselves designated 19 Tauri Aa (officially named Taygeta , the traditional name for the entire system) and Ab. Based on parallax measurements obtained during the Hipparcos mission, 19 Tauri A is approximately 440 light-years from the Sun. Nomenclature ''19 Tauri'' is the system's Flamsteed designation. It also bears the little-used Bayer designation ''q Tauri''. The designations of the two constituents as ''19 Tauri A'' and ''B'', and those of ''A's'' components - ''19 Tauri Aa'' and ''Ab'' - derive from the convention used by the Washington Multiplicity Catalog (WMC) for multiple star systems, and adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The system bore the traditional name ''Taygeta'' (or ''Taygete''). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electra (star)
Electra , designated 17 Tauri, is a blue-white giant star in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. It is the third-brightest star in the Pleiades Open cluster, open star cluster (Messier object, M45); the most visible stars in this group are named for the Pleiades (Greek mythology), Seven Sisters of Greek mythology. Properties The star has an apparent brightness of 3.72, the third-brightest of the stars in the group. Electra belongs to the spectral class B6 IIIe and is approximately 400 light-years from the Sun. The Pleiades cluster is thought to be 444 light-years away. The stellar rotation, projected rotational velocity of this star is 181 km/s, making it a fast rotator. This is the velocity component of the star's equatorial rotation along the line of sight to the Earth. The estimated inclination of the star's pole is , giving it a true equatorial rotational velocity of . The rapid rotation rate of this star flattens the poles and stretch the equa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hairy Head
The Hairy Head mansion (昴宿, pinyin: Mǎo Xiù) is one of the Twenty-eight mansions of the Chinese constellations. It is one of the western mansions of the White Tiger. This mansion corresponds to the Pleiades The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance ... in English. Asterisms {{DEFAULTSORT:Hairy Head (Chinese Constellation) Chinese constellations ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Astronomy
Astronomy in China has a long history stretching from the Shang dynasty, being refined over a period of more than 3,000 years. The ancient Chinese people have identified stars from 1300 BCE, as Chinese star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the mid-Shang dynasty. The core of the "mansion" (宿 ''xiù'') system also took shape around this period, by the time of King Wu Ding (1250–1192 BCE). Detailed records of astronomical observations began during the Warring States period (fourth century BCE) and flourished from the Han period onward. Chinese astronomy was equatorial, centered on close observation of circumpolar stars, and was based on different principles from those in traditional Western astronomy, where heliacal risings and settings of zodiac constellations formed the basic ecliptic framework. Joseph Needham has described the ancient Chinese as the most persistent and accurate ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Working Group On Star Names
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) in May 2016 to catalog and standardize proper names for stars for the international astronomical community. It operates under Division C – Education, Outreach and Heritage. The IAU states that it is keen to make a distinction between the terms ''name'' and ''designation''. To the IAU, ''name'' refers to the (usually colloquial) term used for a star in everyday conversation, while ''designation'' is solely alphanumerical, and used almost exclusively in official catalogues and for professional astronomy. (The WGSN notes that transliterated Bayer designations (e.g., Tau Ceti) are considered a special historical case and are treated as designations.) Terms of reference The terms of reference for the WGSN for the period 2016–2018 were approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its meeting on 6 May 2016. In summary, these are to: * establish IAU guidelines for the proposal and ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Astronomical Union
The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and development through global cooperation. It was founded in 1919 and is based in Paris, France. The IAU is composed of individual members, who include both professional astronomers and junior scientists, and national members, such as professional associations, national societies, or academic institutions. Individual members are organised into divisions, committees, and working groups centered on particular subdisciplines, subjects, or initiatives. As of 2018, the Union had over 13,700 individual members, spanning 90 countries, and 82 national members. Among the key activities of the IAU is serving as a forum for scientific conferences. It sponsors nine annual symposia and holds a triannual General Assembly that sets policy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
