Week of July 7-13, 2024
While you may have become frustrated trying to see a lion, a hunter or an eagle among the stars, there is one star grouping that is quite easy to recognize. You can find it low in the southern sky after dark on early summer evenings.
We know it as Scorpius, the scorpion, and it doesn't require much imagination to trace its stars into the outline of its namesake. You'll have little trouble finding it; several stars outline its claws at the top, and a long, curving stellar arc traces its tail, complete with a stinger at its very tip.
This image is one of the oldest of all Egyptian hieroglyphics, and it appears in inscriptions pre-dating the third millennium BC. Depending on where one lived in the ancient world, however, it might have been known by a different name.
Ancient Chinese sky watchers, for example, knew the stars in this area as part of the large and regal figure of the Azure Dragon, or Dragon of the East. And islanders of the South Pacific, who had never seen a scorpion, imagined it instead as the giant fishhook that pulled the islands from the sea. Both make sense to me.
After locating Scorpius, you may find yourself gazing around the sky in search of the constellation Orion, but you'll discover it's nowhere to be found. That's because when Scorpius is in our sky, Orion is not. And vice versa.
Why this occurs presents a great example of how the ancient Greeks invented stories to explain just about everything. To them, Scorpius represented the creature whose sting caused the death of the great hunter Orion, a prominent celestial symbol of winter. So, as the story goes, when the gods placed these characters in the heavens, they moved them to opposite sides of the sky so there'd be no trouble between the two.
The brightest star in Scorpius is Antares (ant-AIR-eez), a reddish-orange star that marks the heart of the great stellar scorpion. It too has an ancient history, extending back some five millennia, when Persian sky watchers saw it as one of their four "royal stars." Even the ancient Egyptians aligned temples with this star to make it part of their ceremonies.
Today we know Antares lies 550 light years distant — that's 3,300 trillion miles — and yet it appears as one of the brightest stars in the sky. Our sun, by comparison — if moved only 20 light years from us — would be barely visible to the unaided eye. So why should Antares appear so bright in our sky? With only a little thought you'll come up with the answer. ...
Because it's big. Very big. OK, it's humongous! If Antares replaced the sun at the center of our solar system, it would not only engulf the sun but also the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, and would stretch halfway to Jupiter! This is why astronomers call it a red supergiant star, though I suspect "red behemoth" might be a more suitable descriptor!
I hope you'll be able to get out under the stars this summer to become acquainted with this amazingly beautiful celestial arachnid!
Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at creators.com.
Photo courtesy of Dennis Mammana
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