What’s in a name?
Taking the time to learn your way around the night sky requires an abundance of patience – a virtue noticeably lacking in some segments of today’s fast-paced world. By following the celestial dome through the seasons you can watch a slowly shifting tableau of constellations and deep sky objects pass overhead. Now, with the mid-point of another lap around the Sun behind us, let’s explore some star name origins.
Star names derive from several different languages, chiefly Arabic with some Latin, Greek and Persian thrown in for good measure. For a fee, outfits like the International Star Registry offer to name a star for a loved one. But, those unofficial designations are not recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Most official star names have been around for centuries and while many are hard to pronounce, each one provides insight to ancient and in some cases, more contemporary star lore and culture.
Over the years, repeated translations and misspellings have altered star names to the forms we know today. Betelgeuse, the bright red star in the constellation Orion has a name origin from the ancient Arabic phrase “yad al jauza” meaning “hand of the central one”; a mysterious female figure. Algol, the second brightest and famous naked eye variable star in the constellation Perseus, is a name from an Arabic phrase for ghoul or mischief-maker. While most constellations have Latin names, star names are overwhelmingly Arabic.
As Europe entered the period generally known as the Dark Ages, the science of astronomy fell out of favor. In the Arab world, seminal works like Ptolemy’s Almagest were carefully studied and star names and designations found within were modified from their original Greek and Latin into Arabic. Once the European Renaissance revived intellectual and artistic pursuits, explorers of the sky sought star charts and guides. Arab scholars provided a ready source and many of the names they used survive to this day .
A couple of star names found in the constellation Delphinus, the Dolphin provide an interesting tale. The names first appeared 1814. Charts referred to the constellation’s two brightest stars as – Sualocin and Rotanev. Nothing about these names suggested roots in any of the usual languages. So, where did they come from? The riddle was solved by English clergyman and astronomer, Thomas Webb.
When reversed, the star names became Nicolaus Venator. By checking historic records, Webb learned that the director of Italy’s Palermo Observatory, Giuseppe Piazzi, had an assistant named Niccolò Cacciatore. When converted to Latin and spelled backward the name was an exact match. While it remains unclear whether Cacciatore placed the star names himself or Piazzi sought to honor his assistant, the ruse evokes memory of another famous Italian who practiced reverse writing in Latin; Leonardo da Vinci.
A more somber example of recent star names comes from the Apollo 1 mission. Apollo spacecraft had gyroscope stabilized guidance systems to aid in celestial navigation. To minimize course errors, astronauts had to be familiar with a list of 37 stars to perform system re-calibrations. Ever the prankster, Apollo 1 Commander, Virgil “Gus” Grissom covertly substituted three of the approved star names with Navi, Dnoces and Regor.
Grissom flipped his middle name, Ivan to create Navi. When reversed, Dnoces becomes ‘second’ – a tip of the hat to crew mate and the second man to spacewalk, Edward White II. Regor is the reversed spelling of third crew member Roger Chaffee’s first name. Sadly, the Apollo 1 crew were killed by smoke from a fire in their command module on January 27th, 1967. Although not commonly used outside of NASA, the Grissom’s Apollo star names continued to be listed by later crews for navigation to honor and commemorate the crew of Apollo 1.
The Apollo program’s early efforts culminated with the Apollo 11 lunar landing and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin taking the first steps made by humans on another world. This week marks the 41st anniversary of their amazing journey.
