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The great winter chase

I have an absolute passion for the great winter constellations that are now putting on their annual winter show in the southeastern Marshall sky. If you’ve been nice enough to be a longtime reader of my Skywatch column, you know my nickname for these constellations is “Orion and his Gang.”

Even if you’re not all that much into stargazing, chances are you know the constellation Orion the Hunter. It’s one of those constellations that actually sort of looks like what it’s supposed to be. The hour glass bowtie-shaped constellation outlines the torso of the mighty hunter. Its best feature is the three bright stars in a row that make up Orion’s belt. The brightest star, Rigel, marks the left knee of the hunter, and the next brightest star, Betelgeuse, is an Arabic name that roughly translates in English to “armpit of the great one.”

Not far away and straight above Orion in the high southeast sky is that wonderful cluster of stars you can easily see. Say hello to the Pleiades! Most people can easily see about six to seven stars with the naked eye. It kind of looks like a tiny Little Dipper. I know you’ve seen it before. Astronomically the Pleiades is a cluster of a couple hundred very young stars, all born together gravitationally out of a gigantic cloud of hydrogen. They shine on us at a distance of over 400 light years away, with just one light year weighing in at over 6 trillion miles!

There are so many more astronomical details I want to share with you about the Pleiades and Orion. I’ll  cover that in the coming weeks, but this week I want to tell you about two of the great mythological sagas involving the Pleiades. The thing about constellations is that different cultures have different stories about how these characters wound up in the heavens. What’s really intriguing about the Pleiades is that several completely different cultures that are nowhere near each geographically have the same basic theme. They both involve the Seven Little Sisters running for their lives.

In the Greek mythology version the Pleiades, or Seven Little Sisters, were seen as the seven lovely young adult daughters of the god Atlas who was the former king of the Greek gods. Zeus and his posse of younger gods launched a military coup on Atlas and his top brass. After a massive and tumultuous battle Zeus defeated Atlas’s armies and grabbed control of Mount Olympus. The new king of the gods couldn’t kill Atlas because he was immortal, but Zeus actually gave him a punishment worse than death. He forced Atlas to take on the weight of the whole world on his shoulders, literally!

Zeus let Atlas’s daughters go free to mesh into the new society. They hung together out of love for each other and mutual support in their new situation. They loved to dance together with one of the sisters playing the harp. One sunny day during one of their jam sessions the mighty hermit hunter Orion caught sight of them from his hunting perch. He became fiendishly mad with desire and took off after them. Leaving the harp behind, the lovely ladies sprinted away from the insane Orion. They all must have been in really good shape because this chase went on nonstop for nearly seven years. Finally the sisters started running out of gas and prayed to Zeus to rescue them. Zeus took pity on them and magically transformed their bodies into the seven stars as we see today as the Pleiades. Orion was foiled!

Years later when Orion was killed by a giant scorpion, which is a whole other story, Zeus transformed Orion into a giant constellation and placed him up in the night sky to resume his chase of the seven sisters. Zeus also placed a celestial bull up in the heavens between Orion and the ladies. The constellation we see as Taurus the Bull still acts as security to the maidens.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in what’s now known as the western United States, the Kiowa Native American lore saw the seven stars of the Pleiades as seven young maidens who mischievously wandered away from their home campsite one night to dance and generally frolic under the stars. They drifted farther and farther away from the home base and suddenly found themselves surrounded by grizzly bears. In vain they ran as fast as they could away from the hungry pack. Everyone knows you can’t outrun grizzly bears and the maidens knew it too. They desperately prayed to the rock they were standing on to save them from being grizzly food. The rock they were standing on responded and suddenly rose over 5,000 feet, leaving the hungry bears on the ground. Shortly after that, the maidens were transformed into seven closely knit stars. The tower that saved the maidens is now known as Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, and every winter the Pleiades brightly shine above it!

I love these constellation stories as much as I love the science of the night sky!

CELESTIAL HUGGING THIS WEEK:  This coming Wednesday and Thursday the waning crescent moon passes by the planets Saturn and Mercury in the low southeastern sky in the morning twilight. Saturn will be the brightest star-like object in that part of the sky. Mercury is 102 million miles away, but Saturn is about a billion miles away. Despite that distance you should be able to resolve Saturn’s ring system with even a small telescope.

A couple of weeks ago in my Starwatch column I featured the wonderful solar eclipse that’ll take place this coming Aug. 21. In Marshall it’ll be a very deep partial eclipse. It’ll  will be a total eclipse though along a narrow strip from coast to coast across the 48 states. I told you that during a partial eclipse you’ll need special eclipse glasses to safely watch the moon creep across the sun’s face. You never want to stare at the partially eclipsed sun without them. You can really damage your eyes, or worse!

My mistake was that also told you that if you’re in the path of the total eclipse that you could take your glasses off a few seconds before totality sets in. To be perfectly safe though you should your glasses on until totality begins. While the risk of hurting is eyes is lower for just a quick glance or two at that point you’re much better off keeping the glasses on. Safety first!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul and is author of the book, “Stars: A Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications available at bookstores at http://www.adventurepublications.net.

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