Constellation
Taurus
Taurus is the zodiac constellation of the bull, marked by the orange eye Aldebaran and the misty Pleiades cluster. The Sun passes in front of it from about 13 May to 21 June.
The myth
Taurus is the bull that Zeus turned himself into so he could carry off the princess Europa, swimming her across the sea to Crete. Only the front half of the animal is drawn in the stars, as if it is rising out of the water.
How to find it
Follow Orion’s Belt up and to the right until you hit a bright orange star. That is Aldebaran, the bull’s eye, set in a V-shaped cluster of stars called the Hyades. Keep going the same way and you reach a small, misty knot of stars, the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, on the bull’s shoulder. Taurus is an evening sight from late autumn to early spring in the northern hemisphere.
When the Sun is there
Hali’s calculations with the official star boundaries put the Sun in front of Taurus from about 13 May to 21 June in 2026, an average of 38.3 days a year, one of the longest stays of any zodiac constellation. That overlaps very little with the Taurus sign season, which in 2026 ran from 20 April to 21 May. People born under the sign Taurus mostly had the Sun in front of Aries, 24 of the sign’s 31 days by Hali’s figures. People born under Gemini had it in front of Taurus for almost the whole sign.
Stars you can find in your chart
Because the bull sits right on the Sun’s path, its stars line up with zodiac degrees. In 2026 Hali’s star positions put Alcyone, the brightest of the Pleiades, at 0 degrees of the sign Gemini and Aldebaran at 10 degrees of Gemini. The Sun passes Alcyone around 21 May and Aldebaran around 31 May. The Moon passes this way every month, and in some years it slides right across the Pleiades and Aldebaran, hiding them for an hour or so.
Ptolemy described the bright star of the Hyades, Aldebaran, as having the nature of Mars. Astrologers who use fixed stars still read a planet sitting on Aldebaran as forceful and ambitious.
Sign and constellation
Your Taurus sign is a season-based slice of the zodiac, not this star pattern. See why your star sign is not a constellation. The Taurus sign guide covers the sign, the Taurus dates page lists when it starts each year, and the real sky tool shows which constellation was really behind your Sun.
Questions
What are the Seven Sisters?
The Pleiades, a tight little cluster of stars riding on the bull's shoulder. It looks like a tiny misty dipper, and most people can count six or seven stars in it by eye.
Was the Sun in Taurus when I was born in May?
In the stars, only from about mid May. By the official boundaries the Sun reaches Taurus around 13 May and stays until about 21 June, so most people born under the sign Gemini had the Sun in front of Taurus.
Sources: Standard references and Greek myth. Hali Sun in constellation times, 1950 to 2029, official IAU boundaries.