Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover 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.

                               2021 January 12

                     A Historic Brazilian Constellation
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Rodrigo Guerra

   Explanation: The night sky is filled with stories. Cultures throughout
   history have projected some of their most enduring legends onto the
   stars above. Generations of people see these stellar constellations,
   hear the associated stories, and pass them down. Featured here is the
   perhaps unfamiliar constellation of the Old Man, long recognized by the
   Tupi peoples native to regions of South America now known as Brazil.
   The Old Man, in more modern vernacular, may be composed of the Hyades
   star cluster as his head and the belt of Orion as part of one leg. Tupi
   folklore relates that the other leg was cut off by his unhappy wife,
   causing it to end at the orange star now known as Betelgeuse. The
   Pleiades star cluster, on the far left, can be interpreted as a head
   feather. In the featured image, the hobbled Old Man is mirrored by a
   person posing in the foreground. Folklore of the night sky is important
   for many reasons, including that it records cultural heritage and
   documents the universality of human intelligence and imagination.

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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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