5/7/2023 0 Comments Orion constellation skychart![]() ![]() At the same time of day at the South Pole itself ( Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station), Rigel is only 8° above the horizon, and the Belt sweeps just along it. Stars (and thus Orion, but only the brightest stars) are then visible at twilight for a few hours around local noon, just in the brightest section of the sky low in the North where the Sun is just below the horizon. However, for much of Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere's winter months, the Sun is below the horizon even at midday. In the period May–July (summer in the Northern Hemisphere, winter in the Southern Hemisphere), Orion is in the daytime sky and thus invisible at most latitudes. In the tropics (less than about 8° from the equator), the constellation transits at the zenith. Orion is most visible in the evening sky from January to April, winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and summer in the Southern Hemisphere. The constellation's three-letter abbreviation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "Ori". In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 04 h 43.3 m and 06 h 25.5 m, while the declination coordinates are between 22.87° and −10.97°. The constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 26 sides. Covering 594 square degrees, Orion ranks twenty-sixth of the 88 constellations in size. Orion is bordered by Taurus to the northwest, Eridanus to the southwest, Lepus to the south, Monoceros to the east, and Gemini to the northeast. It is some 16,000 years older than a possible star chart on the walls of France's Lascaux cave.The constellation of Orion, as it can be seen by the naked eye. ![]() If Rappenglück is right, the tusk carving would be the earliest known star chart. "We can never be 100% sure" about such ancient objects, but the Orion hypothesis seems plausible, says astronomer Juan Belmonte of the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, a specialist in prehistoric astronomical systems. Rappenglück's paper will appear in the August issue of the Proceedings of the European Society for Astronomy and Culture. Rappenglück speculates that people might have used the tablet to keep track of days during this period because children conceived then would be born during winter, a slow time for paleolithic women, rather than spring to fall, when migration and food-gathering kept them on their feet. From the perspective of the cave about 32,000 years ago, Rappenglück calculates that Orion's brightest star, Betelgeuse, would have been invisible beyond the night horizon for 3 months of each year, roughly equivalent to 87 nights. He also offers an explanation of how ancient people used the 87-odd notches on the opposite face of the tablet. In particular, he says, one of Orion's stars (phi2 Ori) has shifted from the top of the hunter's head, where it appears in the figure, into the neck, where we see it today. Now suspecting that the key to the puzzle might be that Orion looked different when the figure was made, Michael Rappenglück of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies in Gilching-Geisenbrunn, Germany, has used a computer program to show that the figure closely tracks what the constellation would have looked like 32,000 years ago. But they were not able to reach a definitive conclusion. Researchers soon offered several possible identities for the figure carved on its surface, including the hunter Orion. The pocket-sized tablet was found in 1979 buried within the collapsed Geißenklòsterle cave in southern Germany. The 32,000- to 38,000-year-old carving on a sliver of mammoth tusk represents the constellation Orion and could have been used as a fertility guide, says a German archaeologist. The purpose of one of the oldest objets d'art may finally be solved. ![]()
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