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Centaurus () is a bright constellation in the southern sky
Celestial sphere

In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imagination rotation sphere of "gigantic radius", concentric spheres and coaxial with the Earth....
. One of the largest
List of constellations by area

Here is a list of the 88 modern constellations by their area in the sky, measured in square degrees.These areas are determined by constellation boundaries drawn up by Eug?ne Delporte in 1930 on behalf of the International Astronomical Union and published in D?limitation scientifique des constellations ....
 constellations in the sky, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellation
Constellation

A constellation is a group of stars that appear to have a physical proximity in the sky. The stars in a constellation are often vastly distant from each other, but they appear close to each other from the perspective of Earth....
s listed by of 1st century astronomer Ptolemy
Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations.

aurus contains the Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri ; is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus and an established binary star system, Alpha Centauri AB ....
 system, a triple star system consisting of a bright binary star
Binary star

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star or secondary....
 to which the much fainter red dwarf
Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf is a United Kingdom science fiction television situation comedy Media franchise, primarily comprising eight series of a television sitcom that ran on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and gained a cult following....
 Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star approximately 4.2 light-years distant in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa....
 is gravitationally bound; Proxima is the nearest known star
Star

A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
 to the Sun
Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
.

In addition to Alpha Centauri, the 4th brightest star
List of brightest stars

Bright stars are bright because they have high luminosity and/or they are nearby. Below are the 91 brightest individual stars as seen from Earth in visible wavelengths ....
 in the sky, a second first magnitude
Apparent magnitude

The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measurement of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the Earth's atmosphere....
 star, ß Centauri
Beta Centauri

Beta Centauri , also known as Hadar or Agena, is the second brightest star in the constellation Centaurus and the list of brightest stars in the night sky....
, is part of Centaurus.

One of the stars in Centaurus is a burnt out white dwarf that has crystallized into the largest known diamond in the galaxy.






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Encyclopedia


Centaurus () is a bright constellation in the southern sky
Celestial sphere

In astronomy and navigation, the celestial sphere is an imagination rotation sphere of "gigantic radius", concentric spheres and coaxial with the Earth....
. One of the largest
List of constellations by area

Here is a list of the 88 modern constellations by their area in the sky, measured in square degrees.These areas are determined by constellation boundaries drawn up by Eug?ne Delporte in 1930 on behalf of the International Astronomical Union and published in D?limitation scientifique des constellations ....
 constellations in the sky, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellation
Constellation

A constellation is a group of stars that appear to have a physical proximity in the sky. The stars in a constellation are often vastly distant from each other, but they appear close to each other from the perspective of Earth....
s listed by of 1st century astronomer Ptolemy
Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman Greek mathematics, Greek astronomy, geographer and astrologer. He lived in History of Roman Egypt, and was probably born there in a town in the Thebaid called Ptolemais Hermiou; he died in Alexandria around 168 AD....
, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations.

Notable features


Stars

Centaurus contains the Alpha Centauri
Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri ; is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus and an established binary star system, Alpha Centauri AB ....
 system, a triple star system consisting of a bright binary star
Binary star

A binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star or secondary....
 to which the much fainter red dwarf
Red Dwarf

Red Dwarf is a United Kingdom science fiction television situation comedy Media franchise, primarily comprising eight series of a television sitcom that ran on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and gained a cult following....
 Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star approximately 4.2 light-years distant in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa....
 is gravitationally bound; Proxima is the nearest known star
Star

A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
 to the Sun
Sun

The Sun , a G V star, is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 98.6% of the Solar System's mass....
.

In addition to Alpha Centauri, the 4th brightest star
List of brightest stars

Bright stars are bright because they have high luminosity and/or they are nearby. Below are the 91 brightest individual stars as seen from Earth in visible wavelengths ....
 in the sky, a second first magnitude
Apparent magnitude

The apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measurement of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the Earth's atmosphere....
 star, ß Centauri
Beta Centauri

Beta Centauri , also known as Hadar or Agena, is the second brightest star in the constellation Centaurus and the list of brightest stars in the night sky....
, is part of Centaurus.

One of the stars in Centaurus is a burnt out white dwarf that has crystallized into the largest known diamond in the galaxy. Scientists have named this star Lucy after the Beatles song "Lucy in the sky with diamonds".

Deep sky objects

Centaurus contains ? Centauri
Omega Centauri

Omega Centauri or NGC 5139 is a globular cluster seen in the constellation of Centaurus, discovered by Edmond Halley in 1677 who listed it as a Nebula....
 (NGC 5139) which, despite being the constellation's "omega" listing, is the brightest globular cluster
Globular cluster

A globular cluster is a sphere collection of stars that orbits a Galactic Center as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers....
 and largest of its kind in the Milky Way
Milky Way

The Milky Way, sometimes called simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies....
.

The nearby lenticular galaxy
Lenticular galaxy

File:File-Ngc5866 hst big.pngA lenticular galaxy is a type of galaxy which is intermediate between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy in galaxy morphological classification schemes....
, radio source Centaurus A
Centaurus A

Centaurus A is a lenticular galaxy about 14 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. It is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers....
 (NGC 5128) and Galaxy ESO 325-G004 is located in the area of Centaurus.

History

Mentioned by Eudoxus
Eudoxus of Cnidus

Eudoxus of Cnidus was a Ancient Greece astronomer, mathematician, scholar and student of Plato. Since all his own works are lost, our knowledge of him is obtained from secondary sources, such as Aratus's poem on astronomy....
 in the 4th century BC and Aratus
Aratus

Aratus was a Greeks didactic poet, known for his technical poetry....
 in the 3rd century BC, Centaurus is an ancient constellation. Large as it is now, in earliest times it was even larger, as the constellation Lupus
Lupus (constellation)

Lupus is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for wolf. Lupus was one of the 48 constellations, listed by the 1st century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations....
 was a sectional asterism
Asterism (astronomy)

In astronomy, an asterism is a pattern of stars seen in Earth's sky which is not an official constellation. Like constellations, they are composed of stars which, while they are in the same general direction, are not physically related, often being at significantly different distances from Earth....
 within Centaurus as an unspecified animal considered to be either in the centaur's grasp or impaled on its spear. The Southern Cross
Crux

Crux is the List of constellations by area of the 88 modern constellations, but is one of the most distinctive. Its name is Latin for cross, and it is dominated by a cross-shaped Asterism and is commonly known as the Southern Cross because it is today visible only from the southern hemisphere, although it was visible near the horizon...
, which now is pictured as overlaying the centaur's lower hind legs, was also originally a mere asterism formed of the stars composing those legs. Additionally, what is now the minor constellation Circinus
Circinus

The constellation Circinus is a small constellation in the southern sky, first defined in the 18th century. Its name is Latin for compass , referring to the drafting tool used for drawing circles; it should not be confused with Pyxis, a constellation that represents a mariner's compass....
 was then just random stars under the centaur's front hooves. In the 1st century CE, Ptolemy catalogued thirty-seven stars in Centaurus.

While Centaurus now has a high southern latitude, at the dawn of civilization it was an equatorial constellation. Precession has been slowly shifting it southward for millennia, and it is now close to its maximal southern declination
Declination

In astronomy, declination is one of the two coordinates of the equatorial coordinate system, the other being either right ascension or hour angle....
. Thousands of years from now it will, once again, be at lower latitudes and be visible worldwide.

Mythology

Centaurus has traditionally been identified as a centaur
Centaur

In Greek mythology, the centaurs are a race of creatures composed of part human and part horse. In early Attica Pottery of ancient Greece, they are depicted with the torso of a human joined at the waist to the horse's withers, where the horse's neck would be....
, a mythological creature, half man, half horse. According to the Roman poet Ovid
Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
 (Fasti v.379), the constellation honors the centaur Chiron
Chiron

In Greek mythology, Chiron or Cheiron was held as the superlative centaur among his brethren. Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents....
, who was tutor to many of the earlier Greek heroes including Heracles
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
 (Hercules), Theseus, and Jason
Jason

Jason was a late ancient Greece Greek mythology figure, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcus....
, the leader of the Argonauts. This is unusual, as most authorities consider Sagittarius
Sagittarius

Sagittarius may refer to:Classical*Sagittarius , an astrological sign*Sagittarius , a constellation*Sagittarii , Roman mounted archers...
 to be the civilized Chiron, while Centaurus represents a more uncouth member of the species. If Centaurus represents Pholus, then in combination with Lupus, the constellation may have formed the basis of the myth of the Erymanthian Boar
Erymanthian Boar

In Greek mythology, the Erymanthian Boar is remembered in connection with Labours of Hercules, in which Heracles, the enemy of Hera, visited in turn "all the other sites of the Goddess throughout the world, to conquer every conceivable 'monster' of nature and rededicate the primordial world to its new master, his Olympian father," Zeus....
, one of the Twelve Labours of Heracles.

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