The Telluride Watch

Published:7/09/06

Sagittarius and Scorpius Ride Low on the Horizon

By Tom White

Although the nights are short, summer is the best time of the year for stargazing. You won’t lose a limb to frostbite, and the sky is filled with many wonders, including two of my favorite constellations, Scorpius and Sagittarius.

These two constellations spend most of their time fairly close to the horizon, which from our vantage point is often obscured by several large masses of rock. However, if you look in the direction of Bear Creek, you’ll get a glimpse of these celestial giants. Presently, Scorpius is rearing its beautiful head up above the peaks. Unless you’re in the lowlands or away from the mountains, you won’t get to see its tail, which curls down to the southeast. Although the scorpion has no claws, it is fabled to have killed the mighty hunter, Orion, who dominates the winter sky.

The head of Scorpius is easily recognizable by the bright red star, Antares, the heart of the scorpion. Because of its blood red color, the Greeks believed the star rivaled the redness of the planet Mars.

The Greeks and the Romans worshiped basically the same gods, but living in different eras of history, they had different names for these deities. That being the case, the god Mars in Roman culture was the same as the god Ares in Greek culture. But what’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and whether you say Mars or Ares, you’re still talking about the God of War.

The word Antares, or anti-Ares, means the opposite of war, or anti-war. I find it quite fitting that desire for peace lies in the heart of this Scorpion, just as it must in the heart of all mankind.

The next constellation, Sagittarius, is the mighty archer, but to me Sagittarius looks like a teapot. This constellation rises after Scorpius and is even lower to the horizon than the mighty scorpion. The thing that intrigues me about this constellation is that it is in the direction of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. If you were to travel at the speed of light and took off in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, you would arrive at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, in about 50,000 years.

The universe is divided into an infinite number of galaxies, each of which consists of billions of stars. Our own galaxy consists of nearly 400 billion stars and all of them rotate around the center of our galaxy about once every 250 million years in different spiral arms. It’s said that in the center of the Milky Way is a gigantic black hole, spewing out radioactive material that lights up brighter than 1,000 stars, so it’s interesting that we do not see a brilliant light when we look in the direction of Sagittarius.

The Milky Way is made not only of stars but a large amount of cosmic dust and gas and since our galaxy is one big disc, the center is obscured by a bunch of dust and junk. This cosmic stuff is illuminated by the brilliant galactic center and we are treated to a faint strip of light, which stretches out across the summer night sky. The ancient Greeks believed this strip of light to be milk spilled from Hera’s (the wife of Zeus) breast and thusly called it the Milky Way. Today this band is aptly called the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Living in such a remote area, we are cursed by mountains that obscure our horizon, but we are also extremely fortunate to be quite some distance from light pollution. It is because of our dark skies that we are able to see this faint arm of our galaxy stretching across the summer sky. Even here, the slightest change of light, be it the lights on main street or the lights in the Shandoka parking lot, will erase this natural wonder from our skies. Take advantage of our terrestrial location and the time of year to look upward and discover your real place of origin.