Ophiuchus

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Ophiuchus

Ophiuchus (?f?????? ) is a large 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....
located around the celestial equator

Celestial equator

The celestial equator is a great circle on the imaginary celestial sphere, in the same plane as the Earth's equator. In other words, it is a projection of the terrestrial equator out into space....
. Its name is Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
for 'snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate legless carnivore reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears....
-holder', and it is commonly represented as a man grasping the snake that is represented by the constellation Serpens

Serpens

Serpens is a constellation. Its name is Latin for snake, and it is unique among the modern constellations in being split into two separate sections, Serpens Caput to the west and Serpens Cauda to the east....
. Ophiuchus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 1st century astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies Celestial body such as planets, stars, and Galaxy.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using physical laws....
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. It was formerly referred to as Serpentarius , a Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
word meaning the same is its current name.

Ophiuchus is a zodiac

Zodiac

Zodiac denotes an annual cycle of twelve stations along the ecliptic, the apparent path of the Sun across the heavens through the constellations that divide the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude....
al constellation (meaning that 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....
passes through it during the course of the year), but unlike the other twelve, it is not counted as an astrological sign

Astrological sign

Astrological signs represent twelve equal segments or divisions of the zodiac. According to astrology, celestial phenomena reflect or govern human activity on the principle of "Macrocosm and microcosm", so that the twelve signs are held to represent twelve basic personality types or characteristic modes of expression....
by astrologer

Astrologer

An astrologer practices one or more forms of astrology. Typically an astrologer draws a horoscope for the time of an event, such as a person's birth, and interprets celestial points and their placements at the time of the event to better understand someone, determine the auspiciousness of an undertaking's beginning, etc....
s.

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Encyclopedia

Ophiuchus (?f?????? ) is a large constellation

Constellation

Celestial equator

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
for 'snake

Snake

Serpens

Astronomer

Ptolemy

Latin

Zodiac

Sun

Astrological sign

Astrologer

Location

It is located between Aquila

Aquila (constellation)

Aquila is a constellation. Its name is Latin for 'eagle' and it is commonly represented as such. It lies roughly at the celestial equator. The alpha star, Altair, is a vertex of the Summer Triangle asterism ....
, Serpens

Serpens

Hercules (constellation)

Hercules is a constellation. It is named after Hercules, the Roman mythological hero adapted from the Greek mythology hero Heracles. Hercules was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 1st century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the the 88 modern constellations today....
, northwest of the center of 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 southern part lies between Scorpius

Scorpius

Scorpius is one of the constellations of the zodiac; as an astrological sign it is called Scorpio. Its name is Latin for scorpion, and its symbol is ....
to the west and Sagittarius

Sagittarius (constellation)

Sagittarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for the archer, and its symbol is , a stylized arrow. Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur drawing a bow....
to the east. It is best visible in the northern summer and located opposite Orion

Orion (constellation)

Orion , often referred to as "The Hunter," is a prominent constellation ? one of the largest, most conspicuous, and most recognizable in the night sky....
in the sky. Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent

Serpens

Serpens is a constellation. Its name is Latin for snake, and it is unique among the modern constellations in being split into two separate sections, Serpens Caput to the west and Serpens Cauda to the east....
; the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, which are nonetheless counted as one constellation.

Notable features

Stars

The brightest stars in Ophiuchus include a Ophiuchi

Alpha Ophiuchi

Alpha Ophiuchi is the brightest star in the constellation Ophiuchus. It also has the traditional name Ras Alhague.Ras Alhague has an apparent magnitude of +2.08, belongs to the Stellar classification#Morgan-Keenan spectral classification A5, and is about 47 light years distant from Earth....
, called Rasalhague (at the figure's head), and ? Ophiuchi

Eta Ophiuchi

Eta Ophiuchi is a star in the constellation Ophiuchus. It also has the traditional name Sabik.? Oph is actually a binary system star system that is difficult to resolve in amateur telescopes but whose true nature has been determined through use of more advanced techniques....
.

RS Ophiuchi

RS Ophiuchi

RS Ophiuchi is a nova approximately 5,000 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus. In its quiet phase it has an apparent magnitude of about 12.5....
is part of a class called recurrent nova

Nova

A nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by the Accretion of hydrogen onto the surface of a white dwarf star. Novae are not to be confused with Type Ia supernovae, or another form of stellar explosion first announced by Caltech in May 2007, Luminous Red Novae....
e, whose brightness increase at irregular intervals by hundreds of times in a period of just a few days. It is thought to be at the brink of becoming a type-1a supernova

Supernova

Barnard's star

Barnard's Star , also known occasionally as Barnard's "Runaway" Star, is a very low-mass red dwarf star approximately 6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus ....
, one of the nearest stars

List of nearest stars

This list of stars nearest to the Earth is ordered by increasing distance out to a maximum of 5 parsecs . Including the Solar System, there are currently 50 stellar systems known which may lie within this distance....
to the Solar System

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and those Astronomical object bound to it by gravity: the eight planets and five dwarf planets, their 173 known Natural satellite, and billions of Small Solar System body....
(the only stars closer are 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 ....
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....
system and 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....
), lies in Ophiuchus. (It is located to the left of ß and just north of the V-shaped group of stars in an area that was once occupied by the now-obsolete constellation of Taurus Poniatovii

Taurus Poniatovii

Taurus Poniatovii was a constellation created by Marcin Poczobutt-Odlanicki in 1777 to honor Stanislaus II Augustus Poniatowski of Poland, king of Poland....
, Poniatowski's Bull.)

In 2005, astronomers using data from the Green Bank Telescope

Green Bank Telescope

The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope and the world's largest land-based movable structure....
discovered a superbubble

Superbubble

Superbubble is the astronomy term used to describe a cavity hundreds of light years across filled with 106 kelvin gas blown into the interstellar medium by multiple supernovae and stellar winds....
so large that it extends beyond the plane of the galaxy. It is called the Ophiuchus Superbubble.

In April 2007, astronomers

Astronomy

Astronomy is the science of Astronomical object and Phenomenon that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere . It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the physical cosmology....
announced that the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic countries on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden has land borders with Norway to the west and Finland to the northeast, and it is connected to Denmark by the ?resund Bridge in the south....
-built Odin satellite had made the first detection of clouds of molecular

Molecule

In chemistry, a molecule is defined as a sufficiently stable, electric charge neutral group of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by very strong chemical bonds....
oxygen

Oxygen

Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
in space, following observations in the constellation Ophiuchus.

The supernova of 1604

SN 1604

Supernova 1604, also known as Kepler's Supernova, Kepler's Nova or Kepler's Star, was a supernova which occurred in the Milky Way, in the constellation Ophiuchus....
was first observed on October 9, 1604, near ? Ophiuchi. Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a Germans mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, and key figure in the 17th century Scientific revolution. He is best known for his eponymous Kepler's laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astrononomy....
saw it first on October 16 and studied it so extensively that the supernova

Supernova

A supernova is a Astronomy#Stellar astronomy explosion. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months....
was subsequently called Kepler's Supernova. He published his findings in a book titled De stella nova in pede Serpentarii (On the New Star in Ophiuchus's Foot). Galileo

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was a Grand Duchy of Tuscany physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution....
used its brief appearance to counter the Aristotelian

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greeks philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, Poetics , theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology....
dogma

Dogma

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authority and not to be disputed, doubted or heresy....
that the heavens are changeless.

In approximately 40,000 years Voyager 1
Voyager 1

The spacecraft is a 722-kilogram Robotic spacecraft space probe of the outer Solar System and beyond, launched September 5, 1977. It remains operational, currently pursuing its extended mission to locate and study the boundaries of the Solar System, including the Kuiper belt and beyond....
probe will pass within 1.6 light years of the star AC+79 3888, which is located in Ophiuchus.

Deep-sky objects

Ophiuchus contains several star cluster

Star cluster

Star clusters or star clouds are groups of stars which are gravity bound. Two types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of hundreds of thousands of very old stars, while open clusters generally contain less than a few hundred members, and are often very young....
s, such as IC 4665, NGC 6633

NGC 6633

NGC 6633 is an open cluster that was, according to the Webb Society Deep-Sky Observer's Handbook, Volume 3 , p. 3, discovered in 1745-46 by Philippe Loys de Ch?seaux....
, M9, M10, M12, M14, M19, M62, and M107, as well as the nebula

Nebula

A nebula is an interstellar cloud of cosmic dust, hydrogen gas and Plasma . Originally nebula was a general name for any extended astronomy astronomical object, including galaxy beyond the Milky Way ....
IC 4603-4604. The unusual galaxy

Galaxy

A galaxy is a massive, gravitation system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and cosmic dust, and an important but poorly-understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter....
merger remnant NGC 6240

NGC 6240

NGC 6240 is a well-studied nearby ultraluminous infrared galaxy in the constellation Ophiuchus. The galaxy is the remnant of a merger between two smaller galaxies....
is also in Ophiuchus.

In 2006, a new nearby star cluster

Star cluster

Ursa Major Moving Group

The Ursa Major Moving Group, also known as Collinder 285, is the closest moving group to Earth, that is, a set of stars with common velocities in space, thought to have a common origin....
, but 7 times more distant (approximately 170 parsecs away). Mamajek 2 appears to have formed in the same star-forming complex as the NGC 2516

NGC 2516

Southern open cluster NGC 2516 The Diamond Cluster was discovered by Abbe Lacaille in 1751-1752.Called The Diamond Cluster because of its stellar clarity....
cluster roughly 135 million years ago.

Mythology

There exist a number of theories as to whom the figure represents.

The most recent interpretation is that the figure represents the healer Asclepius

Asclepius

Asclepius is the god of medicine and healing in ancient Greek mythology. Asclepius represents the healing aspect of the medical arts, while his daughters Hygieia, Meditrina, Iaso, Aceso, Aglaea and Panacea symbolize the forces of cleanliness, medicine, and healing, respectively....
, who learned the secrets of keeping death at bay after observing one serpent bringing another healing herbs. To prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal

Immortality

Immortality is the concept of life in a body or soul for an infinite or inconceivably vast length of time.As immortality is the negation of mortality?not dying or not being subject to death?it has been a subject of fascination to human since at least the beginning of history....
under Asclepius' care, Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
killed him with a bolt of lightning

Lightning

File:Blesk.jpgLightning is an Earth's atmosphere discharge of electricity usually accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcano or dust storms....
, but later placed his image in the heavens to honor his good works. It has also been noted that the constellation Ophiuchus is in close proximity in the sky to that of Sagittarius

Sagittarius (constellation)

Sagittarius is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for the archer, and its symbol is , a stylized arrow. Sagittarius is commonly represented as a centaur drawing a bow....
, which has at times been believed to represent 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....
(the mentor of Asclepius and many other Greek demigod

Demigod

The term "demigod", meaning "half-god", is used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human. Demi-gods include the Celtic hero C?chulainn, Gilgamesh, and Heracles....
s), though Chiron was originally associated with the constellation Centaurus

Centaurus

Centaurus is a bright constellation in the celestial sphere. list of constellations by area constellations in the sky, Centaurus was included among the 48 constellations listed by of 1st century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations....
.

Another possibility is that the figure represents the Trojan

Troy

Troy is a legendary city and center of the Trojan War, as described in the Epic Cycle, and especially in the Iliad, one of the two epic poems attributed to Homer....
priest Laocoön, who was killed by a pair of sea serpents sent by the gods after he warned the Trojans not to accept the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

The "Trojan Horse" refers to the stratagem that allowed the Greeks to finally enter the city of Troy during the Trojan War. In the best-known version of this Bronze Age story, after a fruitless 10-year siege of Troy, the Greeks built a huge figure of a horse, in which a select force of men hid....
. This event was also memorialized by the sculptors Agesander, Athenodoros

Athenodoros

Athenodoros or Athenodorus was the name of several figures in the ancient Hellenistic world:* Athenodoros of Kleitor , sculptor who made statues of Zeus and Apollo which the Lacedaemonians erected at Delphi...
, and Polydorus

Polydorus

In Greek mythology, Polydorus referred to several different people.#An Argive, son of Hippomedon. Pausanias lists him as one of the Epigoni, who attacked Thebes, Greece in retaliation for the deaths of their fathers, the Seven Against Thebes, who died attempting the same thing....
in the famous marble sculpture Laocoön and his Sons
Laocoön and his Sons

The statue of Laoco?n and His Sons, also called the Laoco?n Group, is a monumental marble sculpture now in the Vatican Museums, Rome....
, which stands in the Vatican Museums

Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries....
.

A third possibility is Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
wrestling with the Python

Python (mythology)

In Greek mythology Python, serpent, was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in Ancient Greek sculpture and Pottery of ancient Greece s as a Serpent ....
to take control of the oracle

Oracle

An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophecy opinion; an infallible authority, usually Spirituality in nature....
at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
.

A fourth is the story of Phorbas

Phorbas

In Greek mythology, Phorbas or Phorbaceus, native to Thessaloniki, was the son of Lapithes and Orsinome, and a brother of Periphas. When the people of the island of Rhodes fell victim to a plague of masses of serpents , an oracle directed them to call on a man named Phorbas....
, a Thessalonikan who rescued the people of the island of Rhodes

Rhodes

Rhodes is a Greece List of islands of Greece approximately southwest of Turkey in eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007 of which 53,709 resided in the Rhodes capital city of the island....
from a plague of serpents

Snake

Snakes are elongate legless carnivore reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears....
and was granted a place in the sky in honor of this deed.

Astrology

Although Ophiuchus intersects the ecliptic

Ecliptic

The ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. As it appears to move in the sky in relation to the stars, the apparent path aligns with the planets throughout the course of the year....
, it is not a zodiacal sign in most versions of astrology

Astrology

Astrology is a group of systems, traditions, and beliefs which hold that the relative positions of astronomical object and related details can provide useful information about personality, human affairs, and other terrestrial matters....
. The signs are defined as more-or-less 30-degree segments of the ecliptic, of which there are twelve, and they are named after nearby constellations at the time the system was developed, rather than being defined by the modern constellations. However, a few sidereal astrologers

Sidereal astrology

Sidereal astrology is the system of astrology used by some Western and all Jyotish astrology who base their interpretation around the use of the Sidereal time zodiac....
consider the Sun to be in the sign Ophiuchus when it is in the constellation Ophiuchus, which is November 30 to December 17.

Although not incorporated into the 12-sign zodiac, Ophiuchus and some of the fixed stars that it is composed of were sometimes used by astrologers in antiquity as extra-zodiacal indicators (i.e. astrologically significant celestial phenomena lying outside of the 12-sign zodiac proper). An anonymous 4th century astrologer, often known as Anonymous of 379, seems to have associated "the bright star of Ophiuchus", likely a Ophiuchi, with doctors, healers or physicians (?at???).

Ophiuchus

Location

Notable features

Stars

Deep-sky objects

Mythology

Astrology

Citations

External links