That's only twice as far as our closest stellar neighbor. Its first appearance in the dawn sky in August heralds the "dog days" of summer. Sirius is actually a double star. The star that we see as Sirius is about 20 times brighter than the Sun.
It is also hotter and more massive than the Sun. Its companion is known as Sirius B, and is nicknamed The Pup. Known as "Laelaps," the dog supposedly held a race against a fox who was deemed to be the fastest creature on Earth, with the dog winning handily.
Zeus placed the canine among the stars to celebrate the animal's victory. Related: Canine constellations: Night sky goes to the dogs. Without a doubt, throughout the course of human history, Sirius has been the most brilliant of all the so-called "fixed" stars in the night sky. In his classic book " Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning " Dover Reprint, , author Richard Hinckley Allen devotes no fewer than 10 pages to the various mythological references and titles of this one star alone.
Sirius was said to be responsible for the Northern Hemisphere's hot, muggy "dog days" that run from early July through mid-August.
Legend had it that because Sirius rises at about the same time as the sun during the period from July 3 to Aug. Indeed, the scorching heat was said to bring forth fever in humans and madness in dogs. The ancient Egyptians had a great deal of respect for Sirius. After being rendered invisible due to its proximity to the sun for a few months each year, the star would rise out of the dawn twilight , an event known as the star's "heliacal rising.
Year after year, this would herald the annual flooding of the Nile Valley, so, quite naturally, the Egyptians concluded that this star brought about the life-giving flood of their river.
People then opened the gates of canals, allowing the waters to refertilize their fields with silt. Around B. The chief reason for the great brilliance of Sirius is its relative closeness to us. It was first described as a crimson star, while observations progressed it was discovered that VY Canis Majoris was a strong source of OH 1. Many molecules have been detected have also been detected. It was listed as a long-period variable with a photographic magnitude range of 9.
Thus, because of this, it was given the designation VY Canis Majoris in , the 3 rd variable star of the constellation of Canis Major. VY Canis Majoris is embedded within the large molecular cloud called Sh Molecular clouds of gas and dust are responsible for many star births. In the case of VY Canis Majoris, it was formed around 10 million years ago when gravity pulled swirling gas and dust together. VY Canis Majoris is a very young star, and it is believed that it evolved from an O9 main-sequence star which initially had between 5 — 20 solar radii.
The star evolved quickly due to its high mass and has spent its time in the red hypergiant phase for around VY Canis Majoris is situated at around 3.
It is one of the biggest stars ever observed and detected in the Milky Way galaxy. VY Canis Majoris has been estimated to have around 17 solar masses, and it is believed that it's lost more than half its mass. Wezen is the third brightest star with a magnitude of 1. It is a yellow-white supergiant star that sits about 1, light years from our solar system.
Canis Major contains one Messier object, M This is an open star cluster containing about stars. It is 26 light years in diameter and is located 2, light years from Earth. A few other notable deep-sky objects can also be found here. These dim objects can only be seen with a large telescope. The Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, also known as the Canis Major Overdensity, is an irregular galaxy that is thought to be the closest neighboring galaxy to our solar system.
NGC and IC are a pair of interacting spiral galaxies that are in the process of colliding with each other.
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