Description
Gemini (the twins) is one of the constellations of the zodiac.
It is part of the winter sky, lying between Taurus to the west and the dim Cancer to the east, with Auriga and the near-invisible Lynx to the north and Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south. The Gemini program is named for it.
Notable features
Gemini includes two bright stars, named after the two twins, who correspond to the Dioscuri in Greek mythology - Castor (?), a pretty telescopic binary (actually sextuple), and Pollux (?), which is brighter and more southwesterly.
The other stars are relatively dim - only one, Alhena (?) is ever seen from a large city - and trace out a rectangle to the southeast.
The planet Pluto was discovered in this constellation in 1930, near the star Wasat (? Geminorum).
Notable deep sky objects
The brightest deep sky object of Gemini is M35, an open cluster of 5th magnitude, 2 800 light-years from earth. It is northwest of ? Geminorum, near the western edge of the constellation |
