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Asterope or Sterope is the traditional name of a double star, whose components are designated 21 Tauri and 22 Tauri, in the constellation of Taurus, although the International Astronomical Union now regards the name Asterope as only applying to 21 Tauri. They are sometimes known as Sterope I and Sterope II.
Contents
They are separated by 0.047° on the sky and are both members of the Pleiades open star cluster (M45) and approximately 440 light years from the Sun.
Nomenclature
21 Tauri and 22 Tauri are the stars' Flamsteed designations.
Asterope was one of the Pleiades sisters in Greek mythology.
In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name Asterope for 21 Tauri on 21 August 2016 and it is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.
Namesake
USS Sterope (AK-96) was a United States Navy Crater class cargo ship named after the star.
Properties
21 Tauri is a blue-white B-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +5.76.
22 Tauri is a white A-type main sequence dwarf with an apparent magnitude of +6.43.