The southern hemisphere is saturated with a large number of bright stars. Canis Major is a relatively small (which contrasts with the name), but very interesting constellation located in the Southern Hemisphere. Its brightness is such that it emits light twenty times stronger than the Sun. The distance from planet Earth to Canis Major is eight and a half million light years.
Location of the constellation in the night sky
Great Dog does not rise high beyond the horizon during the day, and therefore it can be seen in the sky for not too long. However, this is offset by the fact that it is quite easy to detect it in the sky. The constellation of Sirius is located in the southeastern part, next to another very bright constellation of Orion. To the north, the constellation Canis Major borders on its dimmer neighbor, the Unicorn. A little higher is the "alpha Canis Minor" - the constellation Procyon. The best time to watch it is from December to January.
Southern neighbors
South of Sirius are Pigeon and Korma. These constellations, unfortunately, do not have bright stars, so they cannot serve as reference points for searching for such an object in the night sky as the constellation Canis Major. However, finding it is simple given the above information.
Myths about the origin of the constellation
Hypergiant Canis Major star Sirius and served as the basis for the creation of the constellation around it. Myths about the origin of the luminary originate from the most hoary antiquity. People saw in it the image of a dog, which over time was transferred to the rest of the constellation. Sirius is mentioned among the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and among 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, with which Tien-lang was killed for mauling the emperor.
However, ancient legends about this star have received the greatest popularity.
Ancient Greek myth of Ikaria
The ancient Greeks considered the dog to be the prototype of this star and the whole constellation. However, here the mythology diverges, and you can find out as many as two theories of the origin of Sirius.
According to the first version, the god Dionysus gave the shepherd Icarius a magical vine of grapes because he sheltered the god-winemaker for the night. Dionysus showed him how to grow grapes and make delicious wine. Icarius told this knowledge to all people during his travels. Once a shepherd came to Attica and gave wine to the locals to taste. However, heI did not take into account that they had never tasted the taste of wine and therefore became very drunk. Thinking that Icarius wanted to poison them, they flew into a rage and killed him. After committing this monstrous crime, people hid in the mountains and buried the body. The shepherd's daughter went in search of her father. And only with the help of Maira's faithful dog did the girl find the place where people buried his body. In a fit of desperation, she hanged herself from a nearby tree.
The angry god-winemaker Dionysus in a rage sent diseases to the inhabitants of Attica. Only many years later, with the help of rituals and sacrifices, people were able to beg forgiveness from God.
The dog Myra, the shepherd Ikaria and his daughter Dionysus placed in the sky as stars. Since then, the constellation Canis Major, Bootes and Virgo have appeared.
Ancient Greek myth of Oreon
Another ancient legend tells of a brave hunter. Oreon (according to some versions, his name was Actaeon) accidentally discovered the goddess Artemis bathing in a cool spring. Naturally, the young man admired the divine beauty of the naked goddess. Frightened, Artemis turned poor Oreon into a deer, which was torn to pieces by his own dog. It was she who eventually became the prototype of the constellation Canis Major.
Ancient astronomers
Even in ancient Egypt, many temple priests carefully watched the rising of Sirius in the morning. This long-awaited event marked the flood of the Nile and the onset of summer (summer solstice). The astronomers of Ancient Egypt called this star Sopt.
The name itself has an ancient Greekorigin. Sirios means "brilliant". However, the Romans called this star "vacation", which means "dog". With the advent of Sirius, the sunrise and a period of unbearable heat began, epidemics arose. Therefore, in Roman educational institutions, the so-called "holidays" were introduced - days of rest, which in fact are simply translated 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 Canis Major that attracted maximum attention and served as an object for numerous predictions, superstitions and signs.
Historical quotes about the star Sirius
The constellation Canis Major was included by Claudius Ptolemy in the famous Almagest catalog of the starry sky. There it was called Dog.
The poet Arat, who lived in the third century BC, called Sirius colorful. And the Roman orator Cicero, rewriting Arata's poems into 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 cracks mute statues." Seneca also writes about Sirius as one of the brightest and most extraordinary space objects.
Double star or two stars?
The age of Sirius, according to various estimates, ranges from two hundred thirty to two hundred and fifty million years. It is moving at a speed of almost eight meters per second towards the solar system, sothe apparent brilliance of Sirius intensifies over time when viewed from Earth. Today we see it white, and the temperature on its surface reaches ten thousand degrees. Arab astronomers, surprisingly, only mentioned five red stars, not six.
French astronomer Camille Flammarion claimed that the translation of the Almagest was inaccurate, and Cicero, Seneca and Horace used "red light" metaphors for their poetic descriptions.
However, it can be assumed that all these figures of antiquity really saw the constellation Canis Major red. Arab astronomers simply edited the Almagest to match the color of Sirius by the end of the first millennium AD. This may indeed be the case, since over many hundreds of years some stars change their surface temperature and characteristic brightness. That is why Camille Flammarion expressed the belief that this is due to a satellite near Sirius itself (that is, the substance flows from a larger star to a smaller one).
German scientist and astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel made observations of the fluctuations and movement of Sirius. In 1834 he considered the presence of a companion star. Its exact detection was recorded by the American astronomer Alvan Clark in 1862. This "companion star" was nicknamed Puppy and named Sirius B. Its radius 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 Canis Major shines ten thousand times stronger than Puppy, whose density is about one ton per cubic centimeter. These characteristics actually correspond to the parameters of white dwarf stars, which have completed the cycle of evolution and have shrunk to the size of small planets.
Interesting facts about the constellation Canis Major
Many astrologers and astronomers believe that the stars affect the human psyche. Since ancient times, it was believed that it was the constellation Canis Major, the photo of which can be seen above, that affects supernatural and paranormal phenomena, magical and occult manipulations.
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. Its age is just over a million years. A cluster called the Little Hive is also quite interesting to study and contains hundreds of stars and even a dozen red giants.
In the constellation Canis Major there is one "super" star - VY Canis Major. 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, due to the extremely low density, it is impossible to determine a more accurate diameter of the star. If you put VY Canis Major 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 hypergiant has an extremely rarefied atmosphere.
