Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (64 page)

Globus Aerostaticus
.
Latin for “hot air balloon,” created in 1810 in honor of French ballooning pioneers, the Montgolfier brothers

Marmor Sculptile
.
Latin for “marble sculpture,” it represented a sculpted bust of Christopher Columbus.

Officina Typographica
.
It means “printing office,” and was created in 1810 in honor of the printing press.

In 1922 the International Astronomical Union (IAU), formed that year for the purpose of standardizing the science of astronomy, threw out most of the newer constellations, took Ptolemy’s 48 (with some alterations) and added 40 more recent ones to come up with 88 constellations that cover the entire sky. They are still the only
ones officially recognized by astronomers today. A few highlights:

An odd one that made it in was
Antlia
. Its original name was
Antlia pneumatica
, which is Latin for “air pump,” and so named in honor of the air pump’s inventor, French physicist Denis Papin.

How many stars are there in a given constellation? Traditionally constellations were made up of a relatively small number of stars—seven in Taurus, nine in Virgo, etc. But scientifically each constellation contains all the stars within its boundary—even the ones we can only see with the most powerful telescopes. That means that there are
trillions
of stars in each constellation.

The largest constellation:
Hydra
, a long, snaky region of stars named after the Greek’s many-headed serpent that covers approximately 4 percent—of the entire sky. The smallest:
Crux
, the “Southern Cross,” seen only in the Southern Hemisphere and covering just .016 percent.

There have been some curious coincidences concerning constellations: Ancient Greek stargazers looked at at particular group of stars and saw…a bear. The Micmac people in Eastern Canada looked at that same group and saw…a bear.

That group of stars is of course the constellation
Ursa Major
, “Great Bear” in Latin. It is best known for containing seven very distinctive stars that we know as the “Big Dipper.” The seven stars of the Big Dipper were interpreted in many different ways around the world: as a plough, a coffin, a chariot—and a hog’s jaw—just to name a few.

Terminology lesson: The Big Dipper is an an
asterism
, a recognizable grouping of stars that are not an actual constellation. Orion’s Belt is another.

Some cultures had constellations with no stars in them. The ancient Incas, who lived high in the Andes Mountains, saw an especially brilliant display of stars. They constructed most of their constellations within or near the Milky Way. Some were for dark, splotchy areas of the Milky Way caused by clouds of space dust (the Incas didn’t know that, of course), and included the Shepherd, the Toad, the Serpent, and the Llama.

Even a small star shines in the darkness.—
Finnish proverb

Match the imaginary place with the book, movie, or TV show it’s from. (Answers on page 541.)