Saturday,  July 28, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 014 • 13 of 35 •  Other Editions

Moon passes close to the star Antares on July 28

• Click here for information on tonight's Delta Aquarid meteor shower
• The southernmost constellation of the Zodiac - Scorpius the Scorpion - lurks low in the evening sky tonight. You can locate the Scorpion because the moon is moving through this part of the sky. You'll find tonight's moon near Antares, the star that represents the Scorpion's Heart.
• Scorpius? Here's your constellation
• From the perspective of mid-northern latitudes, the Scorpion comes up in the southeast in evening twilight now and skitters near the southern horizon during the evening hours, with its fishhook-

shaped tail scraping along the ground.
• Antares: Heart of the Scorpion
• Lesath and Shaula: Scorpion's stinger stars
• The Scorpion's nighttime presence tells stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere that Orion the Hunter - the gem of all constellations - is nowhere to be found in the night sky. According to star lore, Orion - a man of great beauty and a gifted hunter - boasted of his great prowess and was convinced of his own invincibility. He finally met his match, though, when the gods made sure that the Scorpion's sting would put Orion to death.
• To immortalize this story about Orion and the Scorpion, the gods turned the two archenemies into constellations. But they decided not to place these two combatants into the same sky together - so, to this day, one of these constellations never enters into the stage of sky until the other one has already left it.


(Continued on page 14)

© 2012 Groton Daily Independent • To send correspondence, click here.