Starship Asterisk*

apodman wrote:

The APOD description wrote:Dark nebulae snake across a gorgeous expanse of stars in this telescopic view
toward the pronounceable constellation Ophiuchus and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

The link gives the correct, or at least the most popular, pronunciation:

off-ih-YOU-kuss

Unfortunately, Harcourt Fenton (Harry) Mudd misled a generation by famously saying:

uf-FYE-uh-kuss

The APOD description wrote:Dark nebulae snake across a gorgeous expanse of stars in this telescopic view toward the pronounceable constellation Ophiuchus and the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

aristarchusinexile wrote:You know, I must protest the common imagination of mankind by asking why any long squiggly thing needs to be indentified as a snake. It could just as easily be a child's skipping rope lying in the freshly mown beside the sidewalk while the child takes a break sipping lemonade which their mother has made specially for the occasion, which is to celebrate the growing of the grass around the skipping rope to a height which will cover it, to be discovered a slit second too late by Dad next time he is cutting the grass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_of_Asclepius wrote:
<<The rod of Asclepius is an ancient Greek symbol associated with astrology and with healing the sick through medicine. It consists of a serpent entwined around a staff. Asclepius, the son of Apollo, was a practitioner of medicine in ancient Greek mythology. The Rod of Asclepius also represents the constellation Ophiuchus, also known as Ophiuchus Serpentarius, the thirteenth sign of the sidereal zodiac.

The rod of Asclepius symbolizes the healing arts by combining the serpent, which in shedding its skin is a symbol of rebirth and fertility, with the staff, a symbol of authority befitting the god of Medicine. The snake wrapped around the staff is widely claimed to be a species of rat snake, Elaphe longissima, also known as the Aesculapian or Asclepian snake. It is native to southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, and some central European spa regions, apparently brought there by Romans for their healing properties.

There are several different theories as to the origin and development of the rod of Asclepius, any or all of which may have contributed to its development. The symbol is named for an ancient Greek legend, although the legend could be older.

According to Greek mythology, Asclepius was said to have learned the art of healing from the centaur Chiron. He is customarily represented as a surgeon on the ship Argo. Asclepius was so skilled in the medical arts that he was reputed to have brought patients back from the dead. For this, he was punished and placed in the heavens as the constellation Ophiuchus (meaning "serpent-bearer"). This constellation lies between Sagittarius and Libra. In early Christianity, the constellation Ophiuchus was associated with Saint Paul holding the Maltese Viper. According to some, Asclepius fought alongside the Achaeans in the Trojan War, and cured Philoctetes of his famous snake bite.

Some scholars have suggested that the symbol once represented a worm wrapped around a rod; parasitic worms such as the "guinea worm" (Dracunculus medinensis) were common in ancient times, and were extracted from beneath the skin by winding them slowly around a stick. Physicians may have advertised this common service by posting a sign depicting a worm on a rod. The worm was mistaken for a snake in the Middle Ages and has since been known as a snake entwined round a staff and not a worm.

A similar symbol, Nehushtan, is mentioned in the Bible. In Numbers 21:4-9 the Bible tells of the Israelites complaining to Moses and to God about their desperate situation.

"Why have you brought us...to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water...." Numbers 21:5 (NKJV)

This angered God, and He sent fiery serpents that attacked the Israelites, and many died. The Israelites came to Moses with an appeal to God, repenting for their sin and asking forgiveness. God then spoke to Moses, telling him to make a bronze serpent set on a pole. Anyone who was bitten by one of the fiery serpents was to look at the bronze serpent and he or she immediately was healed. It is possible that this incident and the Nehushtan influenced the symbol of the Rod of Asclepius, and possibly explains why it is used today as a symbol of medicine and the medical field.>>

http://www.ips-planetarium.org/planetarian/articles/common_errors_xmas.html wrote:---------------------------------------------------------------
Common Errors in "Star of Bethlehem" Planetarium Shows
by John Mosley, Griffith Observatory

<<The massing of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 1604 was awaited with
anticipation. "Somee watched to correct their ephemerides, some for the
sake of pleasure, some because of the rarity of the occasion, some to
verify their predictions, and others, indeed, to see if there would be
a comet as had been expressly predicted by the astrology of the Arabs,"

Kepler wrote (Opera Omnia vol. II, p.617, as quoted by
BurkeGaffney). Mars came first into conjunction with Saturn,
on September 26, and then with Jupiter on October 9.
Although Kepler missed this last event because of clouds,
others in Europe saw the two planets and noted nothing amiss.

On October 10 a new star, as bright as Jupiter, was spotted essentially
between Jupiter & Saturn, which themselves were only 9 degrees apart.

Kepler observed it carefully until it faded into the sun's glare
the following year, and later wrote a book De Stella Nova in
Pede Serpentarii (About the New Star in the Serpent Holder's Foot).

While writing this book, Kepler came across a work by Laurence
Suslyga of Poland that argued that Christ was born in 4 B.C.
Kepler noticed that this was shortly after a triple conjunction that
he calculated had occurred in 7 B.C., and wondered if there was a
connection. In 1614 he published his conclusions: the triple conjunction
of 7 B.C. was followed by a massing of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in 6
B.C., and just as the conjunction and massing of 1603 4 had produced a
new star, so the events of 7 6 B.C. had produced a miraculous nova, and
THAT NOVA was the Star of Bethlehem. The biblical triple conjunction
took place in Pisces, but the massing that followed took place
in Aries -- one of the fiery signs -- just as the massing
of 1604 had also taken place in a fiery sign.

Kepler believed that the star over Bethlehem was a nova placed
there specifically to alert and guide the magi. He wrote,
"I do not doubt but that God would have condescended
to cater to the credulity of the Chaldeans.>>
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