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Slip into a Coma
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If you find yourself this week enjoying spring's planetary alignment in the early evening's western skies, I have a suggestion: While you're at it, slip into a coma.
One of the least appreciated constellations but one of great interest to astronomers is Coma Berenices, located next to well-known Leo the Lion.
About nine o'clock tonight face south and look almost directly up. You'll see something that looks like a backwards question mark. That is the head and mane of a regal Leo the Lion stalking bright Jupiter as it leads him into the horizon.
A little to the east (left) of Leo's head is the rest of the lion's body which includes the very bright Denebola. Denebola marks the Lion's loin --- his hindquarters.
If the night is clear and moonless you'll see a dim cluster of stars almost as far up and to the left of Denebola as Leo's head is up and to the right. This is the Coma Berenices Star Cluster, which when seen through a binoculars consists of thirty to forty faint stars.
But how did it get there? That depends on whose story you believe.
Humdrum astronomers will say that the cluster is a relatively old open cluster of stars all created together in a star nursery millions of years ago, and now probably dispersing, moving away from home, as young adults have a tendency to do.
Ancient
people had a much more interesting story. The Macedonian king of Egypt,
Ptolemy III, understandably upset at the killing of his sister at the
hands of the Assyrians, waged war against them. He made it through safely
which prompted his wife, Berenice, to lop off her beautiful hair as a
sacrifice to the goddess Aphrodite in thanks for his safe return.
But in all the celebration her curls mysteriously disappeared from the altar! The royal couple were royally upset and threatened to sacrifice the priests who were supposed to be keeping an eye on the locks.
Then amazingly the mystery of the missing hair was solved! Conon of Samos, a Greek astronomer, discovered what had happened. Apparently Aphrodite was so appreciative of Berenice's sacrifice that she put her hair up in the heavens into Leo's realm so all could see and admire. Why, it was there the whole time!
And there it is now, Coma Berenices --- the hair of Berenice --- a rather lackluster constellation, no offense to Aphrodite.
But what holds greater interest for astronomers is that in Coma Berenices can be found an incredibly rich concentration of galaxies. Too dim to be seen with anything but the big scopes, the Coma Cluster, as it is known, has (sit down) tens of thousands of full blown galaxies each with billion and billions of stars.
Located about 250 million light years away, the monstrous neighborhood of galaxies is over a million times more distant than the stars that make up the tiny star cluster we see in the foreground.
Currently the great interest in the Coma Cluster consists in no less than an attempt to find out about the entire past and future of the universe! Beyond the "scope" of this article, suffice it to say now that by knowing about some of the parts that make up the galaxies out there, we can estimate the age of our universe, how fast we are expanding, and how it all might end up.
Where else but in astronomy can you pick through someone's hair and discover great secrets of the universe?
Until next time, clear skies!
Mark Ritter can be reached here. Photo courtesy Kopernic.org.
Posted by Administrator at 2002.04.27 02:58 PM | Comments (0)
