Starship Asterisk*

userloser wrote: ↑Sun Jan 28, 2024 3:56 am Quite obviously a boar and not a "dragon", whatever this "dragon" of yours is.

https://imgur.com/a/kFqhVd8

AVAO wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 10:49 am

Ann wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 6:15 am I'm going to do a Neufer and talk about something else.
Ann

... tribute to

neufer wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:16 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon wrote:

---

<<Dragon-like creatures appear in virtually all cultures around the globe. In his book An Instinct for Dragons (2000), anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans, just like monkeys, have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats, and birds of prey. He cites a study which found that approximately 390 people in a thousand are afraid of snakes and notes that fear of snakes is especially prominent in children, even in areas where snakes are rare. The earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or bear snakelike attributes. Jones therefore concludes that the reason why dragons appear in nearly all cultures is because of humans' innate fear of snakes and other animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors. Dragons are usually said to reside in "dank caves, deep pools, wild mountain reaches, sea bottoms, haunted forests", all places which would have been fraught with danger for early human ancestors.

In her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. She argues that the dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired by "observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas" and that ancient Greek artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by fossils of Samotherium, an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils are common in the Mediterranean region. In China, a region where fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are frequently identified as "dragon bones" and are commonly used in Chinese traditional medicine. Mayor, however, is careful to point out that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossils and notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters, but has long "been considered barren of large fossils." In one of her later books, she states that "Many dragon images around the world were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such as Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, iguanas, alligators, or, in California, alligator lizards.">>

Draco coils around the north celestial pole, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

---

Boomer12k wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:19 am
Gee...maybe this is where Dragon's come from in Lore....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(constellation) wrote:
<<Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. The north pole of the ecliptic is in Draco. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star. Dragons in Greek mythology that may have inspired the constellation's name include Ladon, the dragon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. Heracles killed Ladon during his 12 labors; he was tasked with stealing the golden apples. The constellation of Hercules is depicted near Draco. In Greco- Roman legend, Draco was a dragon killed by the goddess Minerva and tossed into the sky upon his defeat. The dragon was one of the Gigantes, who battled the Olympic gods for ten years. As Minerva threw the dragon, it became twisted on itself and froze at the cold North Celestial Pole before it could right itself. Sometimes, Draco is represented as the Titan son of Gaia, Typhon.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings wrote:
<<Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.>>

Ann wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 6:15 am ...
I'm going to do a Neufer and talk about something else. Although admittedly he would talk about Shakespeare or Finnegan's Wake, not about cosmic vistas that have nothing to do with the APOD in question. But I'm me, so I'll do precisely that.

Here there be dragons, eh? Okay, here there be dragons:

NGC 6188 The fighting dragons of Ara George Papanicolaou .png

Here there be dragons (NGC 6188 in Ara.
Credit: George Papanicolaou

The fighting dragons of Ara George Papanicolaou annotated.png

George Papanicolaou

I'll leave the aurora dragon to some else to discuss, but what created the dragons of Ara? Well, the massive molecular cloud of Ara gave birth to the incredibly massive dominant stars of cluster NGC 6193, and the incredibly energetic radiation of the most massive stars of NGC 6193 sculpted the dragons of Ara!

NGC 6188 and NGC 6193 by Joseph M Drudis.png

The massive stars of NGC 6193 (top)
have sculpted the dragons of Ara. Credit: Joseph M. Drudis.

The most massive star of NGC 6193, HD 150136, is a multiple star where all three components are spectral class O.

Wikipedia wrote:

The primary star consists of a double-lined spectroscopic binary[4] with a more distant tertiary companion. The third star is orbiting the other two with a period of 8.2 years, an eccentricity of 0.73, and an inclination of 108°. The close binary stars are separated by hardly more than their own diameters and orbit in less than 3 days, but the third is separated enough to have been resolved visually by VLTI. The measured separation in 2012 was 9 milli-arcseconds, corresponding to 11-12 AU.

All three (four, including HD 150135) of the brightest stars are massive luminous O class main sequence stars, 27 to 54 times as massive as the Sun. They are around 10 times the size of the Sun, but 6-8 times hotter and each is over 100,000 times as luminous. The primary star is the closest O3 star to Earth, 46,500 K, visually 18,000 times as bright as the sun, but because of its high temperature it is around three quarters of a million times more luminous including all wavelengths.

Wowzers! I'll say!

And now I'll ask someone else to discuss the actual APOD! The stage is yours!

Ann

Ann wrote: ↑Sun Jan 14, 2024 6:15 am I'm going to do a Neufer and talk about something else.
Ann

neufer wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 3:16 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon wrote:

---

<<Dragon-like creatures appear in virtually all cultures around the globe. In his book An Instinct for Dragons (2000), anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans, just like monkeys, have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats, and birds of prey. He cites a study which found that approximately 390 people in a thousand are afraid of snakes and notes that fear of snakes is especially prominent in children, even in areas where snakes are rare. The earliest attested dragons all resemble snakes or bear snakelike attributes. Jones therefore concludes that the reason why dragons appear in nearly all cultures is because of humans' innate fear of snakes and other animals that were major predators of humans' primate ancestors. Dragons are usually said to reside in "dank caves, deep pools, wild mountain reaches, sea bottoms, haunted forests", all places which would have been fraught with danger for early human ancestors.

In her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times (2000), Adrienne Mayor argues that some stories of dragons may have been inspired by ancient discoveries of fossils belonging to dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. She argues that the dragon lore of northern India may have been inspired by "observations of oversized, extraordinary bones in the fossilbeds of the Siwalik Hills below the Himalayas" and that ancient Greek artistic depictions of the Monster of Troy may have been influenced by fossils of Samotherium, an extinct species of giraffe whose fossils are common in the Mediterranean region. In China, a region where fossils of large prehistoric animals are common, these remains are frequently identified as "dragon bones" and are commonly used in Chinese traditional medicine. Mayor, however, is careful to point out that not all stories of dragons and giants are inspired by fossils and notes that Scandinavia has many stories of dragons and sea monsters, but has long "been considered barren of large fossils." In one of her later books, she states that "Many dragon images around the world were based on folk knowledge or exaggerations of living reptiles, such as Komodo dragons, Gila monsters, iguanas, alligators, or, in California, alligator lizards.">>

Draco coils around the north celestial pole, as depicted in Urania's Mirror, a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825

---

Boomer12k wrote: ↑Mon Feb 18, 2019 10:19 am
Gee...maybe this is where Dragon's come from in Lore....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_(constellation) wrote:
<<Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. It was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. The north pole of the ecliptic is in Draco. In 3000 BC, the faint star Thuban in the constellation Draco was the North Star. Dragons in Greek mythology that may have inspired the constellation's name include Ladon, the dragon who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides. Heracles killed Ladon during his 12 labors; he was tasked with stealing the golden apples. The constellation of Hercules is depicted near Draco. In Greco- Roman legend, Draco was a dragon killed by the goddess Minerva and tossed into the sky upon his defeat. The dragon was one of the Gigantes, who battled the Olympic gods for ten years. As Minerva threw the dragon, it became twisted on itself and froze at the cold North Celestial Pole before it could right itself. Sometimes, Draco is represented as the Titan son of Gaia, Typhon.>>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings wrote:
<<Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, and characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times also extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.>>

Wikipedia wrote:

The primary star consists of a double-lined spectroscopic binary[4] with a more distant tertiary companion. The third star is orbiting the other two with a period of 8.2 years, an eccentricity of 0.73, and an inclination of 108°. The close binary stars are separated by hardly more than their own diameters and orbit in less than 3 days, but the third is separated enough to have been resolved visually by VLTI. The measured separation in 2012 was 9 milli-arcseconds, corresponding to 11-12 AU.

All three (four, including HD 150135) of the brightest stars are massive luminous O class main sequence stars, 27 to 54 times as massive as the Sun. They are around 10 times the size of the Sun, but 6-8 times hotter and each is over 100,000 times as luminous. The primary star is the closest O3 star to Earth, 46,500 K, visually 18,000 times as bright as the sun, but because of its high temperature it is around three quarters of a million times more luminous including all wavelengths.