Monthly Archive for August, 2006

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What’s Up for August 2006

Ahhh… the dog days of summer have arrived. Ever wonder where the term “dog days” comes from?

Over the course of a year, the Sun makes one complete circuit against the background of constellations (from our vantage point on Earth). Imagine it this way: Say you place a lamp in the center of a room, and walk around it. The walls of the room are covered in pictures. Now, if you keep your eyes fixed on the walls around and beyond the lamp as you go around it, at one point or another, you will see the lamp in the same field of view as every picture in the room.

In this context, you are the Earth “orbiting” the lamp, or Sun. The “pictures” are the constellations in our sky. Therefore, over the course of the year, the Sun appears to make a complete circuit against the background of constellations.

Canis MajorSo, what does this have to do with the “dog days” of summer? Well, one of the “pictures” in our sky is the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog. It’s primary member is the star Sirius, which is the brightest star (other than the Sun) in our sky. Sirius is so bright, in fact, that ancients believed that it wasn’t a coincidence that the hottest days of the year happened when the Sun and Sirius rose and set together. They felt that Sirius “added” to the heat from the Sun, and nicknamed the days when that occurred after Sirius - the Dog’s Star.

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