![]() It lies between Cancer and Taurus, neighboring Orion, and is the 30th largest constellation in the Earth’s night sky. The Constellation of Gemini is situated in the northern sky’s second quadrant, and is visible between latitudes -60 to +90 degrees. Taking pity on Pollux, Zeus decided to reunite the twin brothers by placing both of them amongst the stars, and hence the Gemini constellation was birthed. The mortal Castor was eventually killed by the other twin pair. Both pairs of twins were involved in the voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, and briefly entertained a truce between them, though this didn’t last for long. However, in another land lived another related set of twin brothers, who-over time-saw the Dioscuri as their rivals. As the twins grew older, they formed a close bond with one another, and soon became known as a single entity, the Dioscuri. Castor was fathered by the queen’s husband, the King of Sparta, while Pollux was the son of Zeus, who had ravished the Spartan Queen disguised as a swan.Īlso, the twins were not born from orthodox childbirth, but had hatched from an egg along with two sisters, Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy. They were born from the same mother, Queen Leda of Sparta, but apparently had different fathers. In Greek mythology, there was a set of twin brothers named Castor and Pollux. It is visible in all of the Northern hemisphere and most of the Southern hemisphere, from winter to spring in the former and only in the summer months of the latter. It is one of the 12 Greek Zodiac constellations, though the Egyptians depict the very same constellation as twin goats rather than twin humans, and the Arabians depicting them as twin peacocks. The former is nine times bigger than our sun and about double its mass, while the latter is actually a six-star system with its primary star having a radius and mass twice and thrice that of our sun. The constellation consists of 17 main stars, with the two brightest, Pollux and Castor, denoted as the heads of the twins. The constellation of Gemini makes up two almost straight lines, with said lines connecting at the top and diverging at the bottom. Every December, a meteor shower-Geminids-occurs within Gemini’s borders Of the six stars that make up Castor, two are three times bigger than our Sunĥ. The second brightest, Castor isn’t actually a single star, but a sextuple star systemĤ. The brightest star of Gemini, Pollux, is the closest giant star to Earthģ.
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