The Star Aldebaran
Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri) is an orange giant star in the constellation Taurus that is frequently featured in works of science fiction (see size comparison). It is classified as a type K5III star, with the corresponding suggestion that it has a stable habitable zone and is well suited for life. There have been claims by astronomers using radial velocity measurements that Aldebaran hosts a planetary system with at least one substellar companion, but none of these has been confirmed as of 2012.
With an average apparent magnitude of 0.87 Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus and ranks among the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. It is one of the easiest stars to find, partly due to its brightness and partly due to its relationship to a prominent asterism: If an observer in the Northern Hemisphere follows the three stars of Orion's Belt from left to right, then the first bright star lying out on the line defined by them is Aldebaran. Also, it is the first star counterclockwise from Rigel in the Winter Hexagon.
The name Aldebaran is Arabic (الدبران al-dabarān) and translates literally as the follower, presumably because Aldebaran appears to follow the Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters" rightward across the night sky. Looking to the left, this easily seen and striking star is the "bloodshot eye" of the asterism which forms the head of Taurus the Bull, and it has been described as "glaring menacingly at the hunter Orion." Aldebaran is a popular subject for ancient myths in multiple cultures (Inuit, Mexican, Native American) and, in more recent times, the mythologizing of science fiction.
Read more about this topic: Aldebaran In Fiction
Famous quotes containing the word star:
“One year
They sent a million here:
Here men were drunk like water, burnt like wood.
The fat of good
And evil, the breast’s star of hope
Were rendered into soap.”
—Randall Jarrell (1914–1965)