For the week including March 25, 2011

VIRGO AND SATURN

Around midevening, the constellation of Virgo and Corvus, the Crow, are situated above the southeastern horizon. In mythology, these stars have long been connected with legends regarding crops and farming. Virgo’s rising in the spring and setting in the fall make it well suited to mark the times of planting and reaping. The bright star Spica, meaning “Ear of Wheat”, and Vindemiatrix, “She who Gathers Grapes” have ancient names commemorating the importance of the constellation to farmers as far back as ancient Babylon.

Finding Virgo among the stars is fairly easy; all you have to do is follow the Crow. The constellation of Corvus, the Crow, has a distinctive shape (highlighted in red in our illustration) that helps it stand out among the stars. The top two stars of the Crow point to the star Spica at the base of the constellation of Virgo. Spica is usually the brightest member of Virgo, but this year an even brighter, very yellow star has joined them. This “star” is actually the planet Saturn and acts as another beacon to guide stargazers to this constellation.

The story most associated with this constellation’s link to agriculture comes from the mythology of ancient Greece and concerns the kidnapping of the beautiful princess Persephone, daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods, and Demeter, goddess of the Earth.

When her daughter first went missing, a very distraught Demeter went to Mount Olympus, the home of the gods, and asked Zeus to help find her. Zeus appeared more preoccupied with whether he had acquired some dirt under his fingernails, but promised Demeter he’d look into it and would get back to her if anything came up. When he turned away to rearrange his thunderbolt collection, Demeter realized that the meeting was ended. Even more upset now, Demeter questioned the other gods, but none of them knew anything about it. Apollo, the sun god, suddenly remembered that recently while looking down from his Chariot of the Sun, he had seen Hades, the god of the Underworld, dragging a very pretty girl down into his kingdom. Demeter traveled there and confronted Hades who informed her that he had indeed stolen the lovely Persephone to be his bride, but that she hadn’t quite taken to the idea of being Queen of the Dead and had gone on a hunger strike. He was hoping though that she’d come around soon. Being in no position to battle a god as powerful as Hades, Demeter returned to Zeus and demanded that he free their daughter before she starved to death. Zeus explained that as King of the Dead, Hades was often in a position to do Zeus favors and so he had given Hades the go-ahead on his romantic theft. He seemed to suggest that Persephone was just being a bit stubborn and that Demeter should just go along with the plan.

The Earth goddess was enraged, but was not without her own resources. She caused all the vegetation on the planet to whither away and promised Zeus that nothing would grow until Persephone was returned. A lot of bad press quickly ensued and finally Zeus summoned those involved. He asked Persephone if she was indeed on a hunger strike and she confirmed it saying that she would continue until she was released or dead. Zeus was about to free her from the cruel king when Hades’ gardener spoke up and said that actually Persephone had been eating – a total of seven pomegranate seeds so far. Amazingly, Zeus chose to rebuke Persephone’s faulty memory by condemning her to forever spend half of each year in the Underworld and half in the world above.

And so, when the Sun enters the constellation of Virgo in late August, farmers know that Persephone will begin her journey back to the Underworld and that they must harvest their crops before Demeter’s punishing winter sets in. Months later, when the stars of Virgo reappear on the horizon at sunset, Persephone is freed from the Underworld, spring has arrived, and flowers can bloom again.

Shown in the NASA photograph at upper left, the gas giant Saturn is mostly made up of hydrogen and helium which helps make it the least dense of all the planets. In fact, if you were to take a fairly good-sized bucket of water and drop Saturn into it, the planet would float! After Jupiter, Saturn is the next largest planet in our solar system and, like Jupiter, it rotates through its day very quickly. (Jupiter’s day is about ten hours long, Saturn’s is about ten and a half.) This fast rotation rate makes Saturn’s atmosphere look like it’s been trapped in a high-speed blender. Toward the end of last year, a storm broke out on the planet that’s still going on. Earth-based telescopes have watched as the size and shape of the storm has stretched so far that it now forms a band in Saturn’s northern hemisphere that encircles the entire planet.

To the unaided eye Saturn looks like a bright yellowish star, but its magnificent ring system is visible in binoculars and stand out well in a telescope.

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