On Valentine’s Day, I want to offer my version of how about Orion wound up among the stars. It’s one the best celestial soap operas in the sky.
Orion was a mighty hunter who lived on a remote island. High in the heavens, he had a secret admirer — and a royal one at that. It was Artimus, the goddess of the moon and the daughter of Zeus, the king of the gods. Her job was to guide a team of flying celestial horses pulling a flatbed cart with the moon affixed to the cart. Night after night the winged horses pulled the moon and Artimus from east to west across the sky. Gazing down on Orion, Artimus gradually fell in love with him from afar. There was a problem, though. It was forbidden for gods to become romantically involved with mortals. Artimus couldn’t help herself, though.
One night as she was guiding the moon she gave into temptation and sprouted her divine wings to soar down to Orion’s side. It was love at first sight for our mighty hunter. From then on, Artimus would stall the moon cart over Orion’s island and fly down to hunt and play with her terrestrial boyfriend. Life was great for the happy couple until Apollo, the god of the sun and Artimus’s brother, found out about them.
Apollo told his father, Zeus, about his sister. Enraged, the king of the gods dispatched Apollo with a giant caged scorpion strapped to his great sun chariot. Zeus’s plan was to have the scorpion bite Orion in his sleep.
It didn’t quite work out that way, though. Orion had built a security system made up of a mocking birds. As the giant scorpion drew near the birds went crazy and Orion woke up. A titanic battle ensued. Orion fought off the scorpion for hours and hours and was on the verge of victory but the exhausted beast managed to sink his stinger into Orion’s left thigh. The hermit hunter slumped onto the ground and died.
The following night Artimus discovered her dead boyfriend and was filled with overwhelming grief and anger. She grabbed the scorpion by the neck and flung it into the sky as far as she could, magically transforming it into the constellation Scorpius which actually does resemble a scorpion.
She then took the mangled body of Orion and flung it up to the opposite end of the sky, transforming it into the constellation Orion. Because Artimus threw her dead boyfriend and the scorpion in opposite directions, Orion is seen mainly in winter and Scorpius in the summer. Artimus wanted a celestial memorial to her dead boyfriend and at the same time wanted to make sure the scorpion was nowhere to be seen. In fact you never see the constellations Orion and Scorpius at the same time ever in the night sky. As soon as Orion rises above the eastern horizon Scorpius sets in the west, and vice versa.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis.
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