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Alnitak, Alnilam, MintakaCredit: Digitized Sky Survey, ESA/ESO/NASA FITS Liberator Color Composite: Davide De Martin (Skyfactory) Alnitak,
Alnilam, and
Mintaka, are the bright bluish stars from east to west (left to right) along the diagonal in this cosmic vista.
Otherwise known as the
Belt of Orion, these three blue supergiant stars are hotter and much more massive than the Sun. They lie about 1,500 light-years away, born
of Orion's well-studied interstellar clouds. In fact, clouds of gas and dust adrift in this region have intriguing and some surprisingly familiar shapes, including the dark
Horsehead Nebula and
Flame Nebula near Alnitak at the lower left.
The famous
Orion Nebula itself lies off the bottom of this star field that covers an impressive 4.4x3.5 degrees on the sky. The color picture was composited from
digitized black and white photographic plates recorded through red and blue astronomical filters, with a computer synthesized green channel. The plates were taken using the
Samuel Oschin Telescope, a wide-field survey instrument at
Palomar Observatory, between 1987 and 1991.
Astronomy Picture of the Day 29 December 2006Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
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Blue Giants -Wolf-Rayet Stars by Plato
The Christmas Tree Cluster from Universe Today
Across the electromagnetic spectrum podacast by Universe Today
The Dark Side of Nature release from ESO European Space Observatories_______________________________________________________
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Every culture has its own constellations and mythology. Constellations rarely look like the object their name suggests; many groupings of stars have been called different things over the years.
According to Greek mythology, the stars in this region of the sky are labeled Orion in honor of a great hunter, son of Neptune and the nymph Eurayle.
This drawing from E. Burritt's atlas of 1835, shows the typical image of Orion -- club in hand, lion-skin shield, attacking the bull, Taurus.
To the Egyptians, the same stars were a tribute to the god of light, Osiris.
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Famous Quotes: A will finds a way. Orison Swett MardenThere is no other investment you can make will pay you so well as the
effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment
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Labels: APoD, Orion, Star Belts
The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities.
During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter.
By A.D. 43, Romans had conquered the majority of Celtic territory. In the course of the four hundred years that they ruled the Celtic lands, two festivals of Roman origin were combined with the traditional Celtic celebration of Samhain.
The first was Feralia, a day in late October when the Romans traditionally commemorated the passing of the dead. The second was a day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple and the incorporation of this celebration into Samhain probably explains the tradition of "bobbing" for apples that is practiced today on Halloween.
By the 800s, the influence of Christianity had spread into Celtic lands. In the seventh century, Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 All Saints' Day, a time to honor saints and martyrs. It is widely believed today that the pope was attempting to replace the Celtic festival of the dead with a related, but church-sanctioned holiday. The celebration was also called All-hallows or All-hallowmas (from Middle English Alholowmesse meaning All Saints' Day) and the night before it, the night of Samhain, began to be called All-hallows Eve and, eventually, Halloween. Even later, in A.D. 1000, the church would make November 2 All Souls' Day, a day to honor the dead. It was celebrated similarly to Samhain, with big bonfires, parades, and dressing up in costumes as saints, angels, and devils. Together, the three celebrations, the eve of All Saints', All Saints', and All Souls', were called Hallowmas.