Curious about Easter’s origins? – you can find it in the stars
Leaping across the sky as March gives way to April, we find the constellation Lepus, the hare. Like the animal it represents, Lepus lies still and inconspicuous below Orion’s feet poised to escape if detected by the hunter’s dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor. Lepus hosts a couple of interesting deep sky objects – the globular cluster M79 and Hind’s Crimson Star.
While M79 has features common to all globular clusters, a spherical grouping of ancient stars tightly bound by gravity, its location is unusual. Surveys of globular clusters and their distribution throughout the Milky Way reveal a common center at the galactic core. However, M79’s location doesn’t fit the model. Most globular clusters are somewhere between us and the center of the galaxy, but M79 lies in the opposite direction toward the outskirts of the Milky Way. This placement suggests that it is extragalactic and may be associated with the Canis Major dwarf galaxy. A violent fate awaits both the dwarf galaxy and M79 as they are drawn in and torn apart by the Milky Way’s gravitational embrace.
Hind’s Crimson Star is named after prolific asteroid hunter and British astronomer John Russell Hind who discovered it in 1845. Also known as R Leporis, it is a variable star with brightness ranging from magnitude 5.5 to 11.7. Periodically seen as almost blood-red in color, it is the sky’s most famous example of a carbon star. Its atmosphere contains more carbon than oxygen. The oxygen becomes depleted as the carbon and oxygen combine to form carbon monoxide. Then, the remaining carbon atoms form a sooty layer of carbon compounds. As the layer thickens, the star’s apparent magnitude drops in brightness and its deep red color is enhanced. When the soot layer is blown away, the star brightens and the process begins anew.
Classic Greek mythology explains that Lepus was placed in the heavens by another fleet-footed being, the Messenger God Hermes. Other star lore associates the constellation with the Anglo-Saxon goddess, Ostara. An alternate spelling of the name Ostara – Eostre – is the basis for our word Easter. But to understand the link between the Easter Bunny and eggs, we must delve a little deeper into the story.
According to pagan belief, the goddess Ostara brings spring time and the season of renewal. After a particularly harsh winter, Ostara finds an injured bird in the snow. With wings frozen by the icy conditions, the bird can no longer fly. Taking pity upon the poor earthbound bird, Ostara transforms it into a hare promising that, although it can no longer fly, it will retain its swift movement across the land.
To honor the hare’s original form as a bird, Ostara allows it to lay eggs one day each year. These special eggs come in all the colors of the rainbow. So, if you find egg shell or feathers in your chocolate bunnies, now you know why.
Following Monday’s full Paschal moon, we are in for a treat come Easter Sunday. Planets Mercury and Venus will be visible side-by-side in the western sky during evening twilight. At a magnitude of about -3.9, Venus is the brighter of the pair. Be sure to catch this celestial pas de deux as the elusive Mercury makes a rare appearance. They will be about 3 degrees apart on the evenings of April 4th and 5th. Later on April 15th, Mercury and Venus will be joined by a very thin new crescent moon.
