Last night I was watching that gooney astronomy show, Jack Horkheimer's Star Gazer that has been on the air for 30th years now--that eery synthetic whistling theme song takes me back to 7 years old faster than I can say the name of the show. He told me that the constellation Scorpius is most visible in late July--between 9 and 10 in the evening. Antares, which marks the scorpion's heart is in the right place for a heart and the right color, red! The star is 700 times wider than our 1 million mile wide sun!! It is so gigantic that if we place one edge of it where our sun is, it reaches beyond jupiter, or 600 light years away. For those of you who can't remember what light years are, that is, we are viewing the light of the star that emitted from it 600 years ago! Within the constellation, towards the bottom right are two fainter "stars" that are actually distant star clusters, called M 6 and M 7, that are roughly 1600 light years away--their light is from 400 AD!!! Wow, outerspace blows my mind.
Look for this exciting constellation before it is gone!
1 comment:
Wow Jayme, that is amazing. It reminds me how small I really am. Isn't it incredible and so very humbling that God took an interest in our little planet . . . to seek out a relationship?
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