A Short History of Astronomy, Arthur Berry [large screen ebook reader .TXT] 📗

To face p. 12.

The constellations as we now have them are, with the exception of a certain number (chiefly in the southern skies) which have been added in modern times, substantially those which existed in early Greek astronomy; and such information as we possess of the Chaldaean and Egyptian constellations shews resemblances indicating that the Greeks borrowed some of them. The names, as far as they are not those of animals or common objects (Bear, Serpent, Lyre, etc.), are largely taken from characters in the Greek mythology (Hercules, Perseus, Orion, etc.). The constellation Berenice’s Hair, named after an Egyptian queen of the 3rd century B.C., is one of the few which commemorate a historical personage.4

13. Among the constellations which first received names were those through which the sun passes in its annual circuit of the celestial sphere, that is those through which the ecliptic passes. The moon’s monthly path is also a great circle, never differing very much from the ecliptic, and the paths of the planets (§ 14) are such that they also are never far from the ecliptic. Consequently the sun, the moon, and the five planets were always to be found within a region of the sky extending about 8° on each side of the ecliptic. This strip of the celestial sphere was called the zodiac, because the constellations in it were (with one exception) named after living things (Greek ζῷον, an animal); it was divided into twelve equal parts, the signs of the zodiac, through one of which the sun passed every month, so that the position of the sun at any time could be roughly described by stating in what “sign” it was. The stars in each “sign” were formed into a constellation, the “sign” and the constellation each receiving the same name. Thus arose twelve zodiacal constellations, the names of which have come down to us with unimportant changes from early Greek times.5 Owing, however, to an alteration of the position of the equator, and consequently of the equinoctial points, the sign Aries, which was defined by Hipparchus in the second century B.C. (see chapter II., § 42) as beginning at the vernal equinoctial point, no longer contains the constellation Aries, but the preceding one, Pisces: and there is a corresponding change throughout the zodiac. The more precise numerical methods of modern astronomy have, however, rendered the signs of the zodiac almost obsolete: but the first point of Aries (♈), and the first point of Libra (♎), are still the recognised names for the equinoctial points.

In some cases individual stars also received special names, or were called after the part of the constellation in which they were situated, e.g. Sirius, the Eye of the Bull, the Heart of the Lion, etc.; but the majority of the present names of single stars are of Arabic origin (chapter III., § 64).

14. We have seen that the stars, as a whole, retain invariable positions on the celestial sphere,6 whereas the sun and moon change their positions. It was, however, discovered in prehistoric times that five bodies, at first sight barely distinguishable from the other stars, also changed their places. These five—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn—with the sun and moon, were called planets,7 or wanderers, as distinguished from the fixed stars. Mercury is never seen except occasionally near the horizon just after sunset or before sunrise, and in a climate like ours requires a good deal of looking for; and it is rather remarkable that no record of its discovery should exist. Venus is conspicuous as the Evening Star or as the Morning Star. The discovery of the identity of the Evening and Morning Stars is attributed to Pythagoras (6th century B.C.), but must almost certainly have been made earlier, though the Homeric poems contain references to both, without any indication of their identity. Jupiter is at times as conspicuous as Venus at her brightest, while Mars and Saturn, when well situated, rank with the brightest of the fixed stars.

The paths of the planets on the celestial sphere are, as we have seen (§ 13), never very far from the ecliptic; but whereas the sun and moon move continuously along their paths from west to east, the motion of a planet is sometimes from west to east, or direct, and sometimes from east to west, or retrograde. If we begin to watch a planet when it is moving eastwards among the stars, we find that after a time the motion becomes slower and slower, until the planet hardly seems to move at all, and then begins to move with gradually increasing speed in the opposite direction; after a time this westward motion becomes slower and then ceases, and the planet then begins to move eastwards again, at first slowly and then faster, until it returns to its original condition, and the changes are repeated. When the planet is just reversing its motion it is said to be stationary, and its position then is called a stationary point. The time during which a planet’s motion is retrograde is, however, always considerably less than that during which it is direct; Jupiter’s motion, for example, is direct for about 39 weeks and retrograde for 17, while Mercury’s direct motion lasts 13 or 14 weeks and the retrograde motion only about 3 weeks (see figs. 6, 7). On the whole the planets advance from west to east and describe circuits round the celestial sphere in periods which are different for each planet. The explanation of these irregularities in the planetary motions was long one of the great difficulties of astronomy.