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Résultats de la recherche
Cen-Lup-Cru-Panorama: Centaurus Carrying the Beast and Riding Along the Milky Way
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Créé pour l'OAE
Légende : Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.
This image was taken in February 2020 in the Coquimbo Region along the northern coast of Chile. It is one of the best places on Earth for astronomical observations, thanks to its clear skies, lack of light pollution and lack of precipitation, as it is close to the Atacama desert, one of the driest places on our planet. It is no coincidence that many of the most modern professional observatories are located here. The picture shows prominent patterns visible in the southern latitudes, containing rich cultural significance for various Indigenous groups of the southern world. In the bottom of the image towards the right, the Southern Cross is prominent. The orange star at the top of the Southern Cross is called Gacrux (gamma crux). The people in Chile celebrate the beginning of winter at the beginning of May when the constellation Crux is high up in the sky; for them it is a symbol of the start of the cold season. For the festival of the Cruz de Mayo (the Great Cross), they put candles next to crosses in their villages when the constellation Crux is high. As in Christianity, the four endpoints (stars) of the cross symbolise the cardinal virtues. For some indigenous Chileans, they represent the fundamental cultural principles: force, reciprocity, wisdom, and spirituality.
Unlike modern constellations that are arrangements of several stars, Indigenous peoples sometimes associate stories with individual stars. In the case of the Southern Cross for example, the Boorong, Djab Wurrung and Jardwadjali peoples of Australia refer to the star Gacrux as Bunya (the ring-tailed possum). From the Southern Cross to the left of the image are two bright stars, these are called the pointer stars (as they point to the Southern Cross). The Djab Wurrung and Jardwadjali people refer to the pointer stars as the Bram-bram-bult brothers, who hunted and killed the giant Emu Tchingal. Alpha Centauri, which is the brighter and whiter of the two pointer stars, is the closest star to the Sun that we can see with our eyes, located just over four light-years away. To the bottom left of the Southern Cross is a dark nebula, which the Indigenous Australians see as the head of the Emu Tchnigal (the Coalsack Nebula). The pointers are located on the neck of the Emu. The image also shows two other IAU constellations, Centaurus (The Centaur) and Lupus (The Wolf), and HII regions of the Eta Carina Nebula (seen in pink).
Crédit : Uwe Reichert/IAU OAE
Termes du glossaire:
Constellation , Voie lactée , Croix du Sud
Catégories :
Voie lactée et milieu interstellaire
, Astronomie à l'œil nu
Licence : Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Icônes
Ce fichier est sur Zenodo ( image 24.14 MB)
Warm Winter Night Over Spiš Region
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Créé pour l'OAE
Légende : Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.
This image, taken in Slovakia in January 2022, shows regions of the Milky Way and a rich variety of constellations. The summer constellations of the northern hemisphere are very low in the sky towards the bottom-right. The bright stars of Cygnus and Lyra shine through the artificial lights at the horizon. The huge array of northern winter and autumn constellations with many bright stars are associated with diverse cultural stories.
For the Lakota people in North America the belt of the Orion constellation represents the spine of a bison (“Tayamnicankh”). Orion, the Hunter of Greek mythology, is sometimes described chasing the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. The Arabs transformed this view by considering the follower of the Pleiades only one star instead of a constellation. Aldebaran, the star in the right eye of Taurus, the Bull, comes from this interpretation, because the name Aldebaran derives from al-dabaran, The Follower.
At the bottom-right, on the horizon, we can see the milky lightcone of the Zodiacal light stretching from the constellation Pisces through Aries, almost reaching the Pleiades, indicating the path of the planets and the Moon in this area. The Pleiades and the Hyades together form a gate on this path, where the heavenly bodies occasionally pass before entering the Milky Way. The planets were considered sheep in ancient Babylon and the modern constellation Orion was considered the “True Shepherd” of the Sky, with his shepherd’s tool reaching the ecliptic. In Roman tradition, the bright white star above the Pleiades and the Milky Way is called Capella, the Goat, which can be traced back to an Egyptian constellation in this area.
Above the treetop in the middle-right part of the image, we see the autumn square, the Andromeda Galaxy and the W-shaped pattern of Cassiopeia. To the left of this group, in the central part of the visible Milky Way, is the constellation Perseus, with Cepheus in the dark area above Cassiopeia completing the celestial family. The Andromeda saga is a Greek story from the area that is now called Israel, and is rooted in Syrian traditions. The location of Andromeda was considered by the ancient Babylonians as the location of the goddess of sexual love, and by the Syrians as the location of the goddess of fertility. According to the saga, Andromeda was chained to a rock at the coast of Jaffa (Tel Aviv) in order to protect her land from a sea monster. The name of the hero who rescued her is Perseus, probably meaning “from Persia” (today’s Iran).
Noticeable in the valley are the lights from towns. The yellow light above the horizon indicates larger cities there, which are given away by their light pollution.
Crédit : Robert Barsa/IAU OAE
Termes du glossaire:
Constellation , Voie lactée , Poissons , Taureau , Orion , Pléiades
Catégories :
Voie lactée et milieu interstellaire
, Astronomie à l'œil nu
Licence : Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Icônes
Ce fichier est sur Zenodo ( image 37.27 MB)
Portrait of a Bat
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Créé pour l'OAE
Légende : Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.
Taken in November 2019 from the Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand, this image captures the notable northern constellation Cassiopeia, in the shape of the letter M. Although the official constellation name is the Latinised version of the name of queen “Kasseipeia” from Greek mythology, these five bright stars were considered a constellation in many cultures around the world and they are associated with diverse stories. In Thailand, for example, the constellation represents a Bat, while in Hawaiian culture it is called 'Iwa Keli'i, the chief frigate bird.
For the Navajo in North America, the bright stars are the central part of the celestial mother (of all stars and humans) revolving around the celestial pole together with her husband, the celestial father (of all stars and humans) seen in the constellation of Ursa Major. For the Maya it was part of the huge constellation of the Hole-Backed Caiman, and for the Inuit a Lamp Stand and a Blubber Container.
In ancient China, the bottom-left star was associated with the mythological general Wangliang who drove four horses, represented by the two bright and two fainter stars of the M’s next stroke (from upper-left to lower-middle). The remaining two bright stars and a couple of the other fainter ones are considered a Flying Corridor, a sort of highway, next to the Emperor’s Forbidden Palace that is located at the northern polar region.
On the island of Tonga in the South Pacific, this asterism is considered the Wing of Tafahi and it is not clear if this refers to the shape of the island of Tafahi, or if it is based on an error and originally referred to a wing of the Polynesian hero Tafaki.
The various colours of the stars indicate their temperatures, with redder stars being relatively cooler on their surface than blue and white stars.
Crédit : Thanakrit Santikunaporn/IAU OAE
Termes du glossaire:
Couleur , Constellation , Astérisme
Catégories :
Astronomie à l'œil nu
Licence : Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Icônes
Ce fichier est sur Zenodo ( image 9.65 MB)
The red supergiant Betelgeuse
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Légende : The image shows Betelgeuse, a red supergiant in the constellation Orion, observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). ALMA consists of many antennae spread across a plain in Northern Chile. The observations from all of these receivers is synthesised together by a central computer to form an image. The wide distances between the antennae mean that is can resolve very fine details.
Most stars we observe are just seen as points of light, but Betelgeuse is so large (with a radius about 1,400 times larger than the Sun) and is sufficiently nearby that it is one of the few stars to have been resolved to show it as an extended object.
Betelgeuse is a massive star, more than 14 times the mass of the Sun and is relatively young for a star (less than 14 million years old). However, its high mass led to it having a very hot core which burned through its hydrogen fuel quickly. It has since evolved through many stages and now appears as a red supergiant, it's final stage before exploding as a supernova. When such an explosion will happen is not known for certain, but it could be in around 100,000 years. Such an explosion would be visible from Earth, even during the day.
Crédit : ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. O’Gorman/P. Kervella
Lien du crédit
Termes du glossaire:
Étoile géante , Géante rouge , Supergéante rouge , Étoile supergéante , Étoile de type M
Catégories :
Étoiles
Licence : Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Icônes
Fichier
( image
4.86 MB)
Touching the stars Activités pédagogiques de astroEDU (liens vers le site astroEDU) Description : A tactile activity to understand the size and evolution of stars
Catégories :
Étoiles
, Le Soleil
Tranches d'âge :
8-10
, 10-12
, 12-14
, 14-16
, 16-19
, 19+
Niveau scolaire :
Informelle - Médiation
, Collège
, Autre
, Secondaire
Domaines d'apprentissage :
Apprentissage par découverte guidée
Coûts :
Faible
Durée :
1h
Compétences :
Poser des questions
, Communiquer des informations
, Développer et utiliser des modèles
Auteurs : Cristina Mercante , Raffaele Belligoli
Licence : Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons (CC) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Icônes
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