The constellation is home to the Geminid meteor shower, which peaks in mid-December. Some may have blasted themselves to bits, while others cast their outer layers into space in a more gentle process, leaving behind their hot, dense cores. The cluster's hottest, heaviest stars have already expired. By studying how much of these elements the stars have today, astronomers learn a great deal about how stars evolve. M35's stars all started with roughly the same amounts of hydrogen, helium, and other elements. But M35's remaining stars are bound together so strongly by their mutual gravitational pull that they're likely to stay together for a long time. That's long enough for many of the cluster's original stars to have been pulled away by the gravity of the rest of the galaxy. Astronomers estimate that the cluster is about 150 million years old. It is about 2,800 light-years away, and it contains a couple of thousand stars. M35 in Gemini The star cluster M35 stands near the feet of the twins. And while the other two sets of twins are relatively close to each other, these "twins" are so far away that it takes thousands of years to orbit the others. Each star is smaller, cooler, and less massive than the Sun, and much fainter. The third set of Castor twins is identical. Instead, special instruments separate the "fingerprints" of the stars as they go around each other, providing details on each star. At such close range, there's no way for telescopes to see them as individual stars. The stars in each of these pairs are so close together that they orbit each other in just a few days. One star in each pair is a good bit bigger, brighter, and heavier than the Sun, while the other star in each pair is smaller, fainter, and less massive than the Sun. Two pairs of Castor's twins are more fraternal than identical. All six stars in the system really are related, because they were born from a single giant cloud of gas and dust, probably around 200 million years ago. This crowded system lies about 50 light-years from Earth. It is at least three times as massive as Jupiter, and it orbits Pollux once every 1.6 years.Ĭastor consists of six stars. The orange-giant star is about 35 light-years from Earth. They spend half of their time in the underworld, the other half in the heavens, where they are represented by the stars of Gemini. ![]() ![]() Moved by Pollux's love for his brother, Zeus agreed to keep them together for eternity. Pollux was inconsolable, and eventually begged Zeus to allow him to die so he could join Castor. ![]() They had many adventures, and joined Jason and the other Argonauts in the search for the golden fleece.īut during a fight with some landowners, the mortal Castor was killed. The four children were raised together, and the two boys - one mortal, the other immortal - were inseparable. One set was fathered by her husband, the other by Zeus, king of the gods. Gemini's two brightest stars bear the names of the twins.Īccording to the most common version of theirstory, the queen of Sparta gave birth to two sets of twins, with one boy and one girl in each pair. But the legend that endures is that of Castor and Pollux. Many cultures have seen two humans in this star pattern, which consists of two roughly parallel lines of stars capped by two of the brightest stars in the night sky.
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