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Monocerotis
Background Voices
Creative Writings on Poetry and Science
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Behind The Dust Shells
Gentle turbulence, I know you
Intend to lead me on, but where?
Where will this dialogue take us?
Gentle turbulence, I know you
Intend to lead me on, but where?
Where will this dialogue take us?
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How Did Unicorns Get Into the Night Sky?
In the Ancient world, mankind developed a method of relating to the night
sky by identifying certain stellar configurations with mythology. The
patterns were called Constellations, and the best stories were related to
the Greek gods. A religion called Astrology evolved out of this practice,
and it continues to this day. It will never end.
To all ancients, the night sky appeared as a ceiling overhead,
something like a stadium roof . Common sense explains why it looks
that way, science explains why it is not that way.
One of the more popular Constellations was the Unicorn, or
Monocerotis, a one horned animal resembling a horse. The
contemporary view of one Nebula within the Constellation is shown
above. It was never seen by humans until the year 2002.
Modern telescopes have changed our view of the sky by bringing distant
objects into clear focus.
For thousands of years, men believed that the Sun revolved around the
Earth, and the Earth was thus the center of the Universe. .Around 1500
A.D.,while watching the moons of Jupiter one week, Galileo realized that
not only did the moons revolve around Jupiter, but that Jupiter and the
Earth revolved around the Sun. If he expressed such an idea in public,
he might have been arrested, imprisoned, even killed by the Church and
the State. Although this altered our view of the planets, the stars were so
distant that they remained fixed. That Unicorn was still there.
By 1700, it was commonly understood that the Earth was one planet
among others that revolved around the Sun. Still, the ancient Greek myth
of Astrology persisted because the stars never moved like the planets.
And yes, that ancient Unicorn was still there!
Up until the 1920's, all men believed the positions of stars were fixed in
one Galaxy called the Universe. In 1924, while observing a star called
of Andromeda, Sir Edwin Hubble discovered that Andromeda was not a
star at all but a remote Galaxy. With that, the universe became much
bigger than the Ancients had ever imagined. But even this did not
change Astrology.
Looking back, we now realize that the universe as it was known in 1900
was much closer to the universe of two thousand years ago than it is to
the one we study in our time. Still, the ancient belief that our lives are
mystically related to patterns we see in the stars will never go away.
This persistence of a belief originates in our emotions rather than in
scientific observation of facts.
Such is the nature of the human mind. The Unicorns never go away.
The photo above can be found at APOD, along with an explanation of its
history, including an enormous explosion in 2002
In the Ancient world, mankind developed a method of relating to the night
sky by identifying certain stellar configurations with mythology. The
patterns were called Constellations, and the best stories were related to
the Greek gods. A religion called Astrology evolved out of this practice,
and it continues to this day. It will never end.
To all ancients, the night sky appeared as a ceiling overhead,
something like a stadium roof . Common sense explains why it looks
that way, science explains why it is not that way.
One of the more popular Constellations was the Unicorn, or
Monocerotis, a one horned animal resembling a horse. The
contemporary view of one Nebula within the Constellation is shown
above. It was never seen by humans until the year 2002.
Modern telescopes have changed our view of the sky by bringing distant
objects into clear focus.
For thousands of years, men believed that the Sun revolved around the
Earth, and the Earth was thus the center of the Universe. .Around 1500
A.D.,while watching the moons of Jupiter one week, Galileo realized that
not only did the moons revolve around Jupiter, but that Jupiter and the
Earth revolved around the Sun. If he expressed such an idea in public,
he might have been arrested, imprisoned, even killed by the Church and
the State. Although this altered our view of the planets, the stars were so
distant that they remained fixed. That Unicorn was still there.
By 1700, it was commonly understood that the Earth was one planet
among others that revolved around the Sun. Still, the ancient Greek myth
of Astrology persisted because the stars never moved like the planets.
And yes, that ancient Unicorn was still there!
Up until the 1920's, all men believed the positions of stars were fixed in
one Galaxy called the Universe. In 1924, while observing a star called
of Andromeda, Sir Edwin Hubble discovered that Andromeda was not a
star at all but a remote Galaxy. With that, the universe became much
bigger than the Ancients had ever imagined. But even this did not
change Astrology.
Looking back, we now realize that the universe as it was known in 1900
was much closer to the universe of two thousand years ago than it is to
the one we study in our time. Still, the ancient belief that our lives are
mystically related to patterns we see in the stars will never go away.
This persistence of a belief originates in our emotions rather than in
scientific observation of facts.
Such is the nature of the human mind. The Unicorns never go away.
The photo above can be found at APOD, along with an explanation of its
history, including an enormous explosion in 2002