Date: February 13, 2012
Title: Love Stories In the Sky
Podcaster: David Dundee
Organization: Tellus Science Museum
Link: www.tellusmuseum.org
Description: In honor of Valentine’s Day we will talk about some of the most famous love stories acted out among the stars. Perseus and Andromeda, the love affair of the Moon and Sun. Orion love of the seven sisters, Osiris and his love for Isis. Astronomer will recount some of these stories and make them come alive as if we were under the stars watching these characters wheel overhead.
Bio: David Dundee is the astronomer at Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Georgia. He has more than 30 years teaching astronomy. He has a BS in astronomy from the University of Arizona and a MA in astronomy from Columbia University.
Sponsor: This episode of the “365 Days of Astronomy” podcast is sponsored by John Cary. Thank you to all involved with these wonderful podcasts.
Transcript:
LOVE STORIES IN THE SKY
JANUARY 2012
Script by
David A. Dundee
Tellus Science Museum
100 Tellus Drive
Cartersville Georgia, 30120
As we move into mid-February, the bright stars of winter parade across the sky. Orion the hunter, composed of seven bright stars, is in the center of this region. It is marked by three stars in a row outlining his jeweled belt. Around the belt are four stars in the pattern of a rectangle marking the shoulders and knees of this giant hunter. Indeed, Orion is a giant; ancient Greeks believed he could walk across the oceans without getting his shoulders wet.
If we follow the belt of Orion northward, we arrive at a bright orange star, Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the bull. Near Aldebaran there is a “Vee” shaped pattern of stars that form the face of the bull. This is a star cluster named the Hyades. Just above this cluster is a brighter cluster of stars called the Pleiades or Seven Sisters.
Orion was a giant hunter, and not surprisingly, he was lonely; because when he arrived in any town or village, people would run away. One day Orion tried to befriend the seven daughters of Atlas, another giant. They were also scared of Orion.
So Venus the goddess of love and beauty turned the seven sisters into seven doves and they flew away.
Orion can be seen to this day pursuing the sisters, known as the Pleiades, across the sky.
To the Ancient Egyptians the stars of Orion represented Osiris the god of the underworld.
Following the three belt stars of Orion to the southeast we come to the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius. Sirius is sometimes known as the Dog Star. This is because it marks the nose of Orion’s hunting dog, Canis Major or big dog. The pattern of Canis Major represented to the ancient Egyptians Isis, the wife of Osiris,. According to legend, Osiris was killed by his evil brother, Set, and his body parts were placed in a wooden chest to float down the river Nile. The Milky Way arching across the sky represents the Nile River. Isis set out to find Osiris so he could be properly mummified. This search is acted out in the stars each night. After Osiris rises out of the east he is followed by his devoted wife searching for him.
Further south in Eastern Africa around Kenya, the stars of Orion represent a hunting scene. The three stars of the hunter’s belt were three zebras and the four stars of Orion’s knees and shoulders represent four hungry lions looking for a meal.
Above the Orion the hunter the “Vee” shaped face represented another hunter crouched in the bushes. The Pleiades, or seven sisters, were the hunter’s seven wives. This devoted husband was not an excellent hunter.
He only had one arrow, he had shot it at the zebras but he missed. Now he was in a troubling dilemma.
His seven wives had told him not to return home if he didn’t have a zebra. So he sat in the bushes wondering which was worse to face his seven wives empty handed or the four hungry lions.
In the new world, native peoples of Brazil saw an unfortunate man in the sky. The belt stars represented the belt like the Greeks, but south of the equator the figure is inverted, so the shoulder stars become the knees. This man had the poor timing to get into an argument with his wife when she was holding a hatchet. She became angry and lopped off one of his legs. The red star, Betelgeuse, represents the bloody stump of one of his legs. The moral of the story is this: never get into an argument with your significant other if he or she is holding an ax.
Andromeda and Pegasus are two characters in one of the most famous love stories of the night sky; the legend of Andromeda.
We can find a “W” pattern of stars that outline the throne of Queen Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia was the queen of Ethiopia and thought of herself as the most beautiful woman anywhere. She would spend endless hours admiring herself in the mirror.
One day she boasted that she was even more beautiful than the daughters of Neptune, the king of the sea. When Neptune heard of this boast he became furious, and he reached down to the bottom of the ocean and pulled up a great blob of mud that he fashioned into a hideous sea monster named Cetus. You can trace the faint stars of Cetus just under the great square of Pegasus.
Cetus would come out of the ocean and devour whole herds of cattle and destroy coastal towns and villages.
King Cepheus, also pictured in the sky, became concerned about the safety of his kingdom, so he went to an oracle, which is kind of an old fashioned fortune teller, to ask what he could do to save his realm. The oracle told him the only thing he could do rid his land of Cetus, was to make a sacrifice. He must take his only daughter, Andromeda, chain her to the rocks by the sea where she would be eaten by the sea monster. King Cepheus loved his daughter but he had to save his people from Cetus, so with a heavy heart Cepheus chained his daughter to the rocks by the sea.
Soon the ugly head of Cetus appeared out in the ocean and began to swim toward his snack. But as luck would have it, a hero appeared, named Perseus.
Perseus also inhabits the sky as one of the constellations.
Perseus had just come off a rather interesting adventure of his own. He had been assigned the task of killing the Medusa. Medusa was the ugliest creature ever.
On her head instead of hair she had snakes and if you looked at her you would be turned into stone.
Perseus had been given special tools to battle the monster.
He had wings on his sandals so he could fly and a special helmet that, when he wore it, would render him invisible. Finally, he had a special shield that was so shiny you could see your own reflection in it. So, armed with these tools, Perseus flew to the island where Medusa lived. The invisible warrior crept up to her, took off his helmet and put the reflective shield up to Medusa’s face. Medusa saw her own image in the shield and she turned into stone. Perseus cut off her head and placed in a pouch on his belt.
He was flying home when drops of blood began to drip out of the stone head and into the ocean. The ocean began to boil and froth and out of the waves was born a magnificent winged horse named Pegasus.
Perseus and Pegasus became friends and they were flying along and noticed Andromeda was about to be devoured by Cetus, so he flew down to the beach and told Andromeda to shut her eyes and not to look no matter what happened.
Perseus stood on the beach and pulled out the ugly head of Medusa.
Cetus took one look at Medusa and turned into stone. Then Andromeda and Perseus flew off on top of Pegasus to live happily ever after.
We look in the early evening to the eastern sky in the spring to find the king of beasts, Leo, rising. There is a love story associated with Leo, the Lion. It again takes place in ancient Egypt; Pharaoh Ptolemy III went off to battle leaving behind his queen Bernice. Bernice was worried about the kings safety so she went to the temple of Venus and had all of her long hair cut off as an offering to the goddess to insure his safe return. When Ptolemy returned safe and victorious he inquired about his queen’s lack of hair. After being told of what had happened, the royal couple set out for the temple to retrieve the hair to make a wig for the queen, but to their horror they found the hair was missing. Pharaoh threatened to punish the priests of the temple for losing the hair, but one of the priests who knew some astronomy, asked the royal couple to return that evening. If they did he would resolve the mystery. So Ptolemy and Bernice returned that evening, and the priest asked them to look up in the sky. Just behind the bright stars of Leo is a faint cluster of stars. “There,” said the priest, “among those stars is the hair of the queen, the gift has been accepted by the gods”. To this day that faint grouping of stars just to the east of Leo is known as “Coma Berenices” or the “hair of Bernice”.
Our last love story in the sky is found among the bright stars of summer. In the summer in the northern hemisphere the Milky Way arches high overhead.
Embedded in the Milky Way are three bright stars arrayed in a great triangle, known as the Summer Triangle. The brightest of the three stars is Vega, the eye of a vulture carrying the harp of Orpheus across the sky. Following the diaphanous ribbon of stars of the Milky Way to the south, we find a bright red star, Antares.
This is the brightest star of Scorpius the scorpion. Here you find the scene of the love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was a handsome young man who could charm everyone around him with the music of his harp. He could stop arguments and arrows in midflight with the wonderful music of his harp. All of the women in his village were in love with Orpheus. One day he married the beautiful madden Eurydice, but on their wedding night she was bitten by a snake and died. Orpheus was determined to get her back. His plan was to journey to the underworld and retrieve her spirit back to the land of the living. He journeyed to the entrance to the underworld, but the Greeks believed that the entrance was located in the curve of the scorpions’ tail in Scorpius. Orpheus arrived at the entrance to the realm of the dead and found the entrance was guarded by a dog called Ceribus. Ceribus was a monster with three heads and twelve tails, each ending in a cobra head. This was like an ancient version of a twenty-four-hour security system.
When one head slept others were awake. Orpheus approached Ceribus and began to play his harp. Slowly all of the heads fell fast asleep.
Orpheus then crept past the monster and climbed down the long flights of stairs down to the realm of the dead. Arriving down in the underworld he found the spirit of his dead wife. The couple was beginning to make the journey to the above world when Pluto, the god of the underworld, told them to stop. Orpheus pulled out his harp again and began to play. The music charmed Pluto so that he allowed them to proceed, but there was one condition: Orpheus would lead his wife up the stairway, but, he was not allowed to look back until they were both safe in the above world. So Orpheus and Eurydice climbed up the stairs to the world of the living. Suddenly Orpheus heard his wife stumble, and he looked back. Eurydice quickly disappeared back down into the shadows. Orpheus returned back to his village, despondent. However, the women of his village thought perhaps now one of them would have a chance at romance with the handsome musician, but Orpheus was not interested in their amorous advances. They became enraged so they slew Orpheus. This is what he wanted to happen. His spirit raced along the Milky Way down to the underworld to be reunited with his beloved. Today we see Pluto’s bird of death, the vulture, carrying the harp of Orpheus outlined by stars in the sky.
THE END
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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