Tuesday 6 December 2011

Constellation-Scorpion

SCORPION

SCORPION (SCORPIO)


Scorpio is seen with it head, long body, tail and stinger. It can be seen between December and February in Malaysia.


The chief star in the constellation Scorpio is Antares. The name in Greek means 'rival of Mars', because of its red colour which makes it seem like the planet Mars.

Scorpio contains several sets of double (binary) stars. It also contains RR Scorpio, a variable star which gets brighter and dimmer and brighter again over a period of 281 days.


STORY TIME

To the ancient Greeks, the constellation Scorpius was the image of a scorpion. The constellation was related to the death of the hunter Orion. There are several different stories about Orion's death. According to one story, Orion wanted to kill all the earth's wild animals.
However, the earth goddess Gaia was not pleased with Orion's intention. So, she sent a giant scorpion to attack Orion. No matter how hard he tried, Orion could not defeat the scorpion. When he tried to escape, the scorpion stung him to death with its poisonous tail.

As a reward for its service, Gaia placed the scorpion's image in the nighttime sky. To this day, it looks as if the scorpion is always chasing after Orion in the nighttime sky.

1 comment:

  1. The story of constellation is very interesting.

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