Wednesday, June 8, 2011

The Devonian Night, part 1

Here’re a few constellations from the Devonian night sky. There’re a lot more than these hiding out amongst my notes (I really gotta’ organize these portfolios better), so I’ll put the other ones up as I find them.

In addition to constellations, we’ve also named a few of the more prominent stars (quite a few astronomy nuts on staff). I should point out that, technically, the names we’ve given to the Devonian night aren’t official since they weren’t registered with the International Astronomical Union. But so far TEI hasn’t had the time (or money) to send an IAU representative back yet, so the names stay for now.

THE ANOMALOCARIS

The red star (actually a red giant near the end of its life) forming its left eye is Yama, named after the Buddhist judge of the dead.

The star forming the right eye is called Nash (short for Nashville-- you’ll see why in a second). Notice from this star there’s a crooked line of stars leading through the first and second body segments of the anomalocaris, down through the third flipper to point at a yellow star in the lower left. We dubbed this the “Natchez Trace” after the historical trail running from Nashville, Tennesse all the way to Natchez, Mississippi (a name we’ve given to the yellow star). The other stars along the “Trace” are named for aspects of the real Natchez trail.

Choctaw is named for the largest Native American First Nation originally found along the trail.

Pharr refers to a complex of eight Middle Woodland Indian burial mounds approximately 23 miles northeast of Tupelo, Mississippi.

Kaintuck is the nickname for boatmen from the Ohio River Valley who floated merchandise down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to sell in Natchez and New Orleans during the late 18th and early 19tth centuries. Since they obviously couldn’t take their rafts back up the river, they usually sold their boats for lumber and walked home along the Natchez.

THE HELMIT URCHIN AND THE HORNET

Helmet urchins (Colobocentrotus atratus) are a bizarre, flattened species of urchin often found in intertidal zones throughout the tropical Pacific.

The Hornet is, well, a hornet. Not much of a story there. Might have something to do with the fact that Art Yamaguchi is from Charlotte (and really seems to dislike New Orleans for some reason).

The only star we’ve name in this area is Acanthoptera, which joins these two constellations together.

MAUI'S FISH HOOK

Named after the Polynesian folk hero. Near the base of the Hook is an open star cluster called the Balistidae Cluster, after the family name for triggerfish.
The star at the tip of the hook is called Horkheimer, after the late Jack Horkheimer, host of Star Hustler—later called Star Gazer (you remember that show, don’t you?) and executive director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium at the Miami Science Museum. Not sure if that one will stick if IAU gets out here since Present Time already has 11409 Horkheimer, a main-belt asteroid.

(Note that the modern-day constellation Scorpius is also sometimes called Maui’s Fishhook. Personally, I like ours better.)

QUETZALCOATL


Named after the feathered serpent deity of the Aztec, Teotihuacan and other Mesoamerican peoples.

The star in the eye of Quetzalcoatl is named Pegasi-51, in reference to our modern day 51-Pegasi, which was the first sun-like star discovered to have an extra-solar planet. Though we have no idea if our Pegasi-51 has planets around it.

In the crown of Quetzalcoatl is another star cluster called the Toltec Cluster, after the legendary (and partially mythological) cultural precursors to the Aztecs.

Below Quetzalcoatl is the brightest star in the Devonian night. As I mentioned in the first entry, we went through several different names for this star before finally deciding on Amaterasu, after the Japanese Sun Goddess. Latrice—the biggest astronomy nut out of all of us—was the one who discovered that Amaterasu is actually a binary system (two stars orbiting around each other—Amaterasu A and Amaterasu B). More precisely, it’s an eclipsing binary system wherein the stars’ plane of orbit is parallel to the observer’s line of sight. In other words, as they orbit, one star passes directly in front of the other with respect to the viewer. As a result, Amaterasu grows dimmer when the smaller of the two stars is hidden behind its larger partner.
THE KIWI

Named after the flightless New Zealand bird. Reese dubbed the bright blue star at the base of its foot Orakei Korako after a particularly active geothermal hot springs located near his hometown of Taupo.


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