Orion the Hunter is certainly rich astronomically, the mythological legend of the mighty hunter is equally as rich.
Many different cultures have their own story of this ancient constellation. My favorite tale evolves from Greek mythology and involves Artemis, the goddess of the moon.
Orion the Hunter stalked and hunted by night. He was also a bit of a hermit. He moved to a large but deserted island where he could hunt and fish undisturbed.
Orion had a secret admirer: Artemis, the goddess of the moon, who did aerial reconnaissance on Orion as she guided her magic moon chariot across the sky, pulled by flying horses.
One night she headed down to Orion’s island and met him eye-to-eye. Orion was smitten and Artemis hunted with him the rest of the night.
When dawn approached she jumped back up to the moon chariot and raced it to the horizon. This taboo love affair went on for some time like this.
Eventually Zeus found out about his daughter’s behavior from Apollo, the god of the sun and Artemis’ brother.
Zeus had to stop this affair, but he didn’t want to lose the love of his daughter. So the king of the gods came up with a plan.
He wanted Orion killed but wanted it to look like an accident. Zeus arranged for a giant scorpion to be dropped on Orion’s island and to fatally sting the hunter in his daytime slumber.
The day of Orion’s scorpion encounter arrived. As Orion slept off another night of successful hunting with Artemis, the scorpion attacked. Orion bolted up and a battle ensuied that went on for hours, but the scorpion prevailed.
That night when Artemis was descended she made the grizzly discovery. The scorpion was still in Orion’s camp, so the godess grabbed it by the tail and flung it so far into the sky.
It became the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Artemis then cradled Orion’s body into her arms and flew off.
When she was high enough she gently tossed Orion a little higher in the sky, magically transforming him into a bright constellation.
She also made sure that Orion was on the opposite side of the sky from the scorpion that assassinated him. That’s why we never see the constellations Orion and Scorpius in the sky at the same time.
Celestial hugging: Tuesday morning see if you can spot Venus just to the lower left of the thin waning crescent moon in the very low southeast sky about 45 minutes before sunrise.
Venus is only 28 million miles away and through a small telescope or pair of binoculars appears as a very thin crescent.
Mike Lynch, a broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis, is the author of “Stars, a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations.” Email him at mikewlynch@comcast.net. The Everett Astronomical Society: www.everettastro.org/
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