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The Crux Constellation: Mythology, Stars and Fact
The Crux Constellation: Mythology, Stars and Fact
The Southern Cross is a pattern of five bright stars that are prominent in the southern sky. The four brightest stars are arranged in an approximate cross shape (specifically a “Latin cross”, which has unequal arms).
These stars could be seen from Greece 3,000 years ago. The ancient Greeks included them in a larger pattern representing their mythical centaur, a magical creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse.
Much later, around the year 1500, Western explorers sailing in the southern oceans noticed the cross-shaped pattern of stars. No doubt because of the symbolic importance of a cross in Christian mythology, they saw it as a distinct grouping, standing out amongst the stars of the centaur.
The stars and a portion of the sky surrounding them were eventually (1928) included in our modern list of 88 constellations as “Crux”, the Latin for Cross. But we just call it the Southern Cross.
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