72 Tauri

72 Tauri (abbreviated 72 Tau) is a possible binary star in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. It is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of +5.5, although only 0.29° from the brighter υ Tauri. Based upon an annual parallax shift of $32.2$ seen from Earth, it is around 410 light years from the Sun.

Properties
72 Tauri is a B-type main sequence star with a stellar classification of B7V. With a mass of and an estimated age of 38 million years, it is 2.8 times the size of the Sun and 185 times its luminosity.

Occasionally this star system is given the Bayer designation υ2 Tauri with υ Tauri, which is separated from it by 0.29° in the sky. υ Tauri is a foreground star, the two are unrelated, and although 72 Tauri lies near the Hyades open cluster, it is much further away.

72 Tauri lies near the ecliptic and can be occulted by the moon. Observations of an occultation in 1985 showed that it was a binary star with the two components separated by $7.9 mas$. There has been no confirmation of this finding and other sources list the star as single.