Gemini lies between Taurus to the west and Cancer to the east, with Auriga and Lynx to the north, Monoceros and Canis Minor to the south, and Orion to the south-west.

[5] Gemini is prominent in the winter skies of the northern Hemisphere and is visible the entire night in December–January.

ε Gem (Mebsuta), a double star, includes a primary yellow supergiant of magnitude 3.1, nine hundred light-years from Earth.

38 Gem, a binary star, is also divisible in small amateur telescopes, 84 light-years from Earth.

[9] μ Gem is the Bayer designation for the fourth brightest star, from our vantage point, in Gemini.

M35 (NGC 2168) is a large, elongated open cluster of magnitude 5, discovered in the year 1745 by Swiss astronomer Philippe Loys de Chéseaux.

[10] In a small amateur telescope, its 10th magnitude central star is visible, along with its blue-green elliptical disk.

The Twins were regarded as minor gods and were called Meshlamtaea and Lugalirra, meaning respectively 'The One who has arisen from the Underworld' and the 'Mighty King'.

Both names can be understood as titles of Nergal, the major Babylonian god of plague and pestilence, who was king of the Underworld.

[12] In Greek mythology, Gemini was associated with the myth of Castor and Pollux, the children of Leda and Argonauts both.

Gemini is dominated by Castor and Pollux, two bright stars that appear relatively very closely together forming an o shape, encouraging the mythological link between the constellation and twinship.

H. A. Rey has suggested an alternative to the traditional visualization that connected the stars of Gemini to show twins holding hands.

In Meteorologica (1 343b30) Aristotle mentions that he observed Jupiter in conjunction with and then occulting a star in Gemini.

[14] A study published in 1990 suggests the star involved was 1 Geminorum and the event took place on 5 December 337 BC.

[16] In 1930 Clyde Tombaugh exposed a series of photographic plates centred on δ Gem and discovered Pluto.

[17] In Chinese astronomy, the stars that correspond to Gemini are located in two areas: the White Tiger of the West (西方白虎, Xī Fāng Bái Hǔ) and the Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què).

[citation needed] As of 2011[update], the Sun appears in the constellation Gemini from June 21 to July 20.