* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Download Constellation Argo Navis
Orion (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
Star of Bethlehem wikipedia , lookup
Corona Borealis wikipedia , lookup
Timeline of astronomy wikipedia , lookup
History of supernova observation wikipedia , lookup
Canis Minor wikipedia , lookup
Auriga (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
Star formation wikipedia , lookup
Aries (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
H II region wikipedia , lookup
Canis Major wikipedia , lookup
Crab Nebula wikipedia , lookup
Cassiopeia (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
Corona Australis wikipedia , lookup
Aquarius (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
Constellation wikipedia , lookup
Perseus (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
Cygnus (constellation) wikipedia , lookup
CONSTELLATIONS OF THE SOUTHERN SKY Argo Navis (or simply Argo) in antiquity was a large constellation in the southern sky that has since been divided into three constellations. It represented the Argo, the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology. Argo Navis is the only one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy that is no longer officially recognised as a constellation. It was unwieldy due to its enormous size: were it still considered a single constellation, it would be the largest of all. In 1752, the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille subdivided it into Carina (the keel, or the hull, of the ship), Puppis (the poop deck, or stern), and Vela (the sails). More of those below. The constellation Pyxis (the mariner's The constellation Argo Navis drawn by compass) occupies an area which in antiquity was considered part Johannes Hevelius of Argo's mast (called Malus). However, Pyxis is not considered part of Argo Navis, and its Bayer designations are separate from those of Carina, Puppis and Vela. The Argonauts were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, the Argo, named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts" literally means "Argo sailors". The story goes as follows: After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the Iolcan throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos). Because of this unlawful act, an oracle warned him that a descendant of Aeolus would seek revenge. Pelias put to death every prominent descendant of Aeolus he could, but spared Aeson because of the Gathering of the Argonauts, 460–450 BC pleas of their mother Tyro. Aeson married Alcimede, who bore Louvre (G 341 him a son and smuggled the baby to Mount Pelion where he was raised by the centaur Chiron, who called the boy Jason. When Jason was 20 years old, an oracle ordered him to head for the Iolcan court. Pelias recognized that Jason was his cousin. He could not kill him because prominent kings of the Aeolian family were present. Instead, he asked Jason: "What would you do if an oracle announced that one of your fellow-citizens were destined to kill you?". Jason replied that he would send him to go and fetch the Golden Fleece (words that the goddess Hera had put in his mouth). Pelias was secretly being haunted by the ghost of Phrixus, who had once fled from Iolcus to Colchis to avoid being sacrificed, riding on a golden ram. According to the oracle, Iolcus would never prosper unless the golden ram's fleece was brought back to Iolcus. This fleece now hung from a tree in the grove of the Colchian Ares, guarded night and day by a dragon that never slept. Pelias swore before Zeus that he would give up the throne at Jason's return, firmly expecting that Jason's attempt to steal the Golden Fleece would be a fatal enterprise. However, Hera acted in Jason's favour during the perilous journey. Jason was accompanied by some 50 principal heroes of ancient Greece, including the well-known figures of Hercules, Orpheus and Perseus. When they reached Colchis, Jason asked the King Aeëtes of Colchis for the Golden Fleece. The King did not refuse, but imposed severe conditions, such as plowing a field with firebreathing bulls and sowing it with dragons teeth. Jason had attracted the attention of Medea, the daughter of the king. She helped him by magic, having made him promise to marry her and take her to Greece. With the help of her magic he was able to do all that and even steel the Golden Fleece from the dragon guarding it. When the Argonauts fled from Colchis, Medea took along her young brother, but murdered him to slow the pursuit of her father. This evil deed caused the gods to send the Argonauts on a geographically confusing trip around Italy and various other places, before Jason could Medea statue holding the Golden Fleece in the center of Batumi (one of the major cities go home and with the fleece claim his rightful place as King of Iolcus. of Colchis), Georgia Some have hypothesized that the legend of the Golden Fleece was based on a practice still used today by Black Sea tribes, placing a lamb's fleece at the bottom of a stream to entrap gold dust being washed down from upstream. The Argo was built by the shipwright Argos or Argus. It was built at the port of Pagasae, using timber from nearby Mount Pelion. Most of what we know about the Argo comes from the Greek poet Apollonius Rhodius, 3rd century B.C. from his epic poem, TheArgonautica The Modern Picture of the Argo: Carina is the keel of the ship, the very bottom of the ship's hull, the ship's backbone. Two asterisms are prominent in Carina. One is known as the Diamond Cross, which is larger than the Southern Cross (but fainter), the long axes of the two crosses being close to parallel. The other is the False Cross, often mistaken for the Southern Cross. The False Cross consists of two Apollonius of Rhodes, floruit first stars in Carina, Iota Carinae and Epsilon Carinae, and two stars in Vela, Kappa half of 3rd century BCE, is best known as the author of the Velorum and Delta Velorum. Carina is well-known for its namesake nebula, Argonautica, an epic poem about NGC 3372, discovered by French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in Jason and the Argonauts and their 1751. The Carina Nebula overall is a colossal emission nebula approximately quest for the Golden Fleece. 8,000 light-years away and 300 light-years wide that possesses vast star-forming regions; it has an overall magnitude of 8.0 and a massive apparent diameter, more than 2 degrees. Its central region is called the Keyhole Nebula, named in 1847 by John Herschel. It is about seven light-years wide and is mostly made up of ionized hydrogen, with two major star-forming regions. The Homunculus Nebula is a planetary nebula visible to the naked eye that is being ejected by the erratic luminous blue variable star Eta Carinae, the most massive visible star known. Eta Carinae is so massive that it has reached the theoretical upper limit for the mass of a star and is therefore unstable. It is known for its outbursts; in 1840 it briefly became one of the brightest stars in the sky due to a particularly massive outburst, which largely created the Homunculus Nebula. Because of this instability and history of outbursts, Eta Carinae has reached the end of its estimated million-year life span and is considered a prime supernova candidate in the next several thousand years. Since the Milky Way runs through Carina, there are a large number of open clusters in the constellation, embedded in rich star fields. The most prominent is IC 2602, also called the "Southern Pleiades". Carina also is the radiant of the Eta Carinids meteor shower, which peaks around January 21 each year. Puppis is the Stern or the poop deck of the Ship Argo Navis. Puppis is from Latin puppis, a standard word for 'ship', but technically it refers to the rear deck of the ship which is the poop deck, the afterpart of a ship. Several extrasolar planet systems have been found around stars in the constellation Puppis. As the Milky Way also runs through Puppis, there are a large number of open clusters in the constellation. M46 and M47 are two open clusters in the same binocular field. M47 can be seen with the naked eye under dark skies, and its brightest stars are 6th magnitude. Messier 93 (M93) is another open cluster somewhat to the south. NGC 2451 is a very bright open cluster containing the star c Puppis and the near NGC 2477 is a good target for small telescopes. The star Pi Puppis is the main component of a bright group of stars known as Collinder 135. The word Vela comes from the Indo-European root for the weblike part of a feather; the vane, curtain or veil. The brightest star in the constellation (sometimes called Regor) is a bright 1.75m supergiant star. The star is actually quintuple, and the primary component is famous for being the brightest Wolf–Rayet star in the sky. The discovery of a binary brown dwarf system named WISE 1049-5319 only 6.6 light years away, the third closest system to Sol, was announced on 11 March 2013. Also of interest is the Vela Supernova Remnant. This is the nebula of a supernova explosion which is believed to have been visible from the Earth around 10,000 years ago. The remnant contains a pulsar which was the first pulsar to be identified optically. AK