[quote="Chris Peterson"][quote="Tom B"]
Nice, but Cancer is a crab, not a lobster.[/quote]
Sort of. Certainly, Cancer is identified with a crab in Greek mythology. But the constellation has been associated with various arthropods, including lobsters, and in medieval images depicting the constellations, it is often drawn as a lobster (as in today's overlay).[/quote][quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_%28constellation%29"]
<<While Hercules was busy fighting the multi-headed monster, Lernaean Hydra, the goddess Hera, who hated her step-son Hercules, sent the Crab to distract him. Cancer grabbed onto the hero's toe with its claws, but barely breaking the rhythm of his great battle with Hydra, Hercules crushed the crab with his foot. Hera, grateful for the little crustacean's heroic but pitiful effort, gave it a place in the sky; but none of its stars were bright because the crab had failed to accomplish its given task.
The modern symbol for Cancer represents the pincers of a crab, but Cancer has been represented as various types of creatures, usually those living in the water, and always those with an exoskeleton. In the Egyptian records of about 2000 BC it was described as Scarabaeus (Scarab), the sacred emblem of immortality. In Babylonia the constellation was known as MUL.AL.LUL, a name which can refer to both a crab and a snapping turtle. On boundary stones, the image of a turtle or tortoise appears quite regularly and it is believed that this represent Cancer as a conventional crab has not so far been discovered on any of these monuments. There also appears to be a strong connection between the Babylonian constellation and ideas of death and a passage to the underworld, which may be the origin of these ideas in much later Greek myths associated with Hercules and the Hydra. In the 12th century, an illustrated astronomical manuscript shows it as a water beetle.
[b][color=#0000FF]Albumasar writes of this sign in the work published in 1489 as a large crayfish. Jakob Bartsch and Stanislaus Lubienitzki, in the 17th century, described it as a lobster.[/color][/b]>>[/quote]
[quote=" http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00003338/"]
[float=left][img]http://www.planetary.org/image/544258201.jpg[/img]
[b][color=#0000FF][size=115][c]A "scorpion" on Venus, according to
Leonid Ksanfomaliti, Solar System Research[/c][/size][/color][/b][/float]Is there life on Venus? Not in reprocessed Venera-13 images.
The Planetary Society Blog Jan. 23, 2012
By Emily Lakdawalla
<<At the end of last week, a rather sensational article appeared in both the Russian- and English-language sites of the Russian news agency, RIA Novosti. "Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist," ran the English headline; a Google translation of the Russian one goes: "The Soviet probes may have photographed creatures on Venus." Accompanying the article are photos from the Venera-13 lander, one blown up to a rather ridiculous extent, with a blob circled, labeled "Scorpion."
The story is so obviously ridiculous that I would ordinarily not give it a second thought. But one thing gave me pause, and that's the author. Leonid Ksanfomaliti is a senior statesman of Russian planetary science. In addition to his scientific and technical contributions, he is also a popularizer, a speaker and writer who brings space science to the public.>>[/quote][quote=" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpius"]
<<In Greek Mythology the myths associated with Scorpio almost invariably also contain a reference to Orion. According to one of these myths it is written that Orion boasted to goddess Artemis and her mother, Leto, that he would kill every animal on the earth. Although Artemis was known to be a hunter herself she offered protection to all creatures. Artemis and her mother Leto sent a scorpion to deal with Orion. Zeus, who later raised the scorpion to heaven and afterwards, at the request of Artemis, did the same for Orion to serve as a reminder for mortals to curb their [url=http://supervillainornewt.com/]excessive pride[/url]. Every winter Orion hunts in the sky, but every summer he flees as the constellation of the scorpion comes.
In another Greek story involving Scorpio without Orion, Phaeton (the mortal male offspring of Helios) went to his father, who had earlier sworn by the River Styx to give Phaeton anything he should ask for. Phaeton wanted to drive his father's Sun Chariot for a day. Although Helios tried to dissuade his son, Phaeton was adamant. However, when the day arrived, Phaeton panicked and lost control of the white horses that drew the chariot. First, the Earth grew chill as Phaeton flew too high and encountered the celestial scorpion, its deadly sting raised to strike. Alarmed, he dipped the chariot too close, causing the vegetation to burn. By accident, Phaeton turned most of Africa into desert and darkened the skin of the Ethiopian nation until it was black. Eventually, Zeus was forced to intervene by striking the runaway chariot and Phaeton with a lightning bolt to put an end to its rampage and Phaeton plunged into the River Eridanos.
The Babylonians called this constellation MUL.GIR.TAB - the 'Scorpion', the signs can be literally read as 'the (creature with) a burning sting'. The Claws of the Scorpion were also known as the Scales in Babylonia.>>[/quote]