Mapping the Universe - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 64

Fig. 2.15 Left : M-31 (NGC-224) - the Andromeda Galaxy; Right : The mythic figure Andromeda

Andromeda is a spiral galaxy with as twice as many stars of our Milky Way. It is
the most distant object visible to the naked eye. According to the Greek mythology,
Andromeda was King Cepheus' daughter and Poseidon was the god of the sea. One
day her mother Cassiopeia boasted that she and Andromeda were more beautiful
than Poseidon's daughters. Poseidon was angry and sent floods to the lands ruled
by Cassiopeia and her husband. King Cepheus found out from an oracle that the
only way to calm down Poseidon was to sacrifice his daughter. Andromeda was
chained to a rock, waiting to be sacrificed to a sea monster, when Perseus arrived
just in time and killed the sea monster and saved the princess. Not surprisingly,
the Andromeda constellation is next to the Perseus constellation as well as the
Cassiopeia constellation (See Fig. 2.16 ).
The Orion constellation is one of the most recognizable constellations in the
Northern Hemisphere. Orion the Hunter is accompanied by his faithful dogs, Canis
Major and Canis Minor. They hunt various celestial animals, including Lepus (the
rabbit) and Taurus (the bull). According to Greek mythology, Orion once boasted
that he could kill all wild beasts. The goddess of the earth Gaea wanted to punish
Orion for his arrogance and she sent the scorpion to kill him. The scorpion stung
Orion on the heel. So in the night sky, as Scorpio (the scorpion) rises from the eastern
horizon, Orion sets in the west. However, Asclepius from with the constellation
Ophiuchus healed Orion and crushed the scorpion. Orion rises again in the east and
Asclepius (Ophiuchus) crushes Scorpio into the earth in the west. To the Greek's,
in the sky Orion waves his club in his right hand and he holds a lion's skin trophy
aloft in his left hand (See Fig. 2.17 ). There are several other versions of the story.
For example, the scorpion did kill Orion and the gods put them on the opposite side
of the sky so that the scorpion would never hurt Orion again.
The red glow in the middle of Orion's sword is the Orion Nebula. Hanging down
from Orion's belt is his sword that is made up of three fainter stars. The central “star”
of the sword is the Great Orion Nebula (M-42), one of the regions most studied by
astronomers in the whole sky. Nearby is the Horsehead Nebula (IC-434), which is
a swirl of dark dust in front of a bright nebula. Figure 2.18 is another illustration of
Orion the Hunter.