Constellation Big Dog: history and stars

The southern hemisphere is saturated with a large number of bright stars. The Big Dog is relatively small (which contrasts with the name), but a very interesting constellation that is located in the Southern Hemisphere. Its brightness is such that it emits light twenty times stronger than the Sun. The distance from the planet Earth to the Great Dog is eight and a half million light years.

Location of the constellation in the night sky

The Great Dog does not rise high beyond the horizon during the day's movement, and therefore it can not be seen in the sky for too long. However, this is compensated by the fact that it is quite easy to detect it in the sky. The constellation of Sirius is located in the southeast, next to another very bright constellation of Orion. In the north, the constellation Bolshoi Pes borders on a dimmer neighbor, the Unicorn. A little higher is the "Alpha Small Dog" - the constellation Procyon. It is best to watch it from December to January.

Southern neighbors

To the south of Sirius are the Dove and the Corma. These constellations, unfortunately, do not have bright stars, therefore they can not serve as reference points for searching for an object in the night sky, like the constellation Big Dog. However, to find it simply with the above information.

Myths about the origin of the constellation

HyperGigantus of the Great Dog is the star Sirius and served as the basis for creating a constellation around it. Myths about the origin of the luminary originate from the grayest antiquity. People saw in it the image of a dog, which eventually moved to the rest of the constellation. Sirius is mentioned among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and the peoples of the Near and Far East. In ancient China, he was considered a "heavenly jackal" named Tien-lang. The southern stars represented his bow and arrows, through which Tien-lang was killed for tearing the emperor.

However, the greatest popularity was given to the ancient tales of this star.

The Ancient Greek Myth of Ikaria

The prototype of this star and the whole constellation of ancient Greeks considered a dog. However, here mythology diverges, and it is possible to learn two theories of the origin of Sirius.

According to the first version, God Dionysus gave the shepherd Ikarija a magic vine for the fact that he sheltered the god of the winemaker for the night. Dionysus showed him how to grow grapes and make delicious wine. This knowledge Ikariy told all people during his travels. Once the shepherd got to Attica and gave wine to the local inhabitants. However, he did not consider that they had never tasted the wine and therefore became very intoxicated. Deciding that Ikari wanted to poison them, they were furious and killed him. After committing this monstrous crime, people disappeared into the mountains and buried their bodies. The shepherd's daughter went in search of her father. And only with the help of the devoted dog Myra the girl found a place where people buried his body. In a fit of despair, she hung herself on the nearest tree.

The enraged god-winemaker Dionysus, in a rage, sent sick people to Attica. Only after many years with the help of rituals and sacrifices, people were able to pray for forgiveness from God.

Dog Mayr, shepherd Ikaria and his daughter Dionysus placed in the sky as stars. Since then appeared the constellation of the Great Dog, Bootes and Virgo.

Ancient Greek myth about Oreon

Another ancient legend tells of a bold hunter. Oreon (according to some versions of his name was Actaeon) accidentally found a bathing goddess bathing in Artemis. Naturally, the young man admired the divine beauty of the naked goddess. The frightened Artemis turned the poor Oreon into a deer, which his own dog ripped. It was she who eventually became the prototype of the constellation of the Great Dog.

Ancient Astronomers

Even in Ancient Egypt, many temple priests carefully watched the rising of Sirius in the morning. This long-awaited event marked the spill of the Nile and the onset of summer (summer solstice). Astronomers of Ancient Egypt called this star Sopt.

The name itself is of ancient Greek origin. The word "sirios" means "brilliant". However, the Romans called this star "vacation", which means "dog." With the advent of Sirius, the sunrise and the period of unbearable heat began, epidemics arose. Therefore, in the Roman educational institutions, and introduced the so-called "vacation" - days of rest, which are actually translated simply as "dog days".

More than five thousand years ago Sumerian astronomers, astrologers and priests associated Sirius with the "dog of the sun". It was this star from the constellation of the Great Dog that attracted maximum attention and served as an object for numerous predictions, superstitions and signs.

Historical quotes about the star Sirius

Constellation Big Dog Claudius Ptolemy was included in the famous star catalog "Almagest". There it was called the Dog.

Poet Arat, who lived in the third century BC, called Sirius colorful. And the Roman orator Cicero, rewriting the poems of Arat in Latin, pointed out that "a hot dog shines under his feet with a red-golden light, reflecting the light of the stars." A Roman poet named Horace notes that "the heat of the Red Dog is cracking the dumb statues". Seneca also writes about Sirius as one of the brightest and most unusual space objects.

A double star or two stars?

The age of Sirius, according to various estimates, is from two hundred thirty to two hundred and fifty million years. It moves at a speed of almost eight meters per second towards the solar system, so the apparent luster of Sirius increases over time as it is observed from Earth. Today we see it white, and the temperature on its surface reaches ten thousand degrees. Arab astronomers, surprisingly, mentioned only five red stars, not six.

An astronomer from France Camille Flammarion claimed that the translation of the "Almagest" was inaccurate, and Cicero, Seneca and Horace used metaphors of "red light" for their poetic descriptions.

However, it can be assumed that all these figures of antiquity really saw the constellation Big Dog red. Arab astronomers just edited the "Almagest" in accordance with the color of Sirius by the end of the first millennium AD. It really can be so, because for many hundreds of years some stars change their surface temperature and characteristic luster. That is why Camille Flammarion expressed the conviction that this is due to the satellite near Sirius itself (that is, matter flows from a larger star to a smaller one).

The German scientist and astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel conducted observations of the vibrations and movements of Sirius. In 1834 he considered the existence of a satellite star. The exact discovery of it was recorded by the American astronomer Alvan Clark in 1862. This "companion star" received the nickname Puppy and the name Sirius V. The radius of it is a hundred times smaller than that of the sun, but the total mass is actually the same for both of these stars. Sirius A as the alpha of the Great Dog shines ten thousand times stronger than the Puppy, whose density is about one ton per centimeter cubic. These characteristics actually correspond to the parameters of white dwarf stars that completed the cycle of evolution and shrunk to the size of small planets.

Interesting facts about the constellation of the Great Dog

Many astrologers and astronomers believe that the stars affect the human psyche. Since ancient times it was believed that it was the constellation of the Great Dog, the photo of which can be seen above, that affects the supernatural and paranormal phenomena, magical and occult manipulations.

Closer to the south of Sirius, you can find a magnificent star cluster called M41, which is located at a distance of two thousand light-years from our solar system. NGC 2362 is another interesting cluster that includes dozens of stars. His age is just over a million years. The cluster called the Small Beehive is also very interesting to study and contains hundreds of stars and even a dozen red giants.

In the constellation of the Great Dog there is one "super" star - VY of the Great Dog. This is a hypergiant by the standards of modern astronomy. Its diameter is almost twenty astronomical units, that is, about thirty billion kilometers. This is two thousand times larger than the diameter of the Sun. Unfortunately, because of the extremely low density, it is impossible to determine the more accurate diameter of a star. If you put the VY of the Great Dog in the place of our Sun, then this giant will take the place of all the planets along with Saturn. The mass of VY is four hundred solar, which means that the hypergigant has an extremely rarefied atmosphere.