APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

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APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by APOD Robot » Wed Apr 02, 2014 4:06 am

Image Mars Red and Spica Blue

Explanation: A bright pair of sky objects will be visible together during the next few months. Mars will shine brightly in its familiar rusty hue as it reaches its brightest of 2014 next week. The reason that Mars appears so bright is that Earth and Mars are close to each other in their long orbits around the Sun. Spica, on the other hand, shines constantly as one of the brightest blue stars in the night sky. Pronounced "spy-kah", the blue-hued star has been visible throughout human history and the sounds that identify it today date back to ancient times. Pictured above, the planet and the star were photographed rising together toward the southeast after sunset last week through old oak trees in Sweden.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by PacRim Jim » Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:21 am

The photo reminded me of how dependent on our eyes we humans are for binding us into our environment. Most everything of interest is beyond hearing range.
It's obvious, I know, but it just struck me forcefully.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Ann » Wed Apr 02, 2014 5:36 am

What a pretty picture! Spica in particular very much appeals to me, with my penchant for blue things, and in this picture it looks like a glittering stone in an engagement ring.

Maybe Mars and Spica are getting hitched? :wink:

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Nitpicker » Wed Apr 02, 2014 6:11 am

Ann wrote:What a pretty picture! Spica in particular very much appeals to me, with my penchant for blue things, and in this picture it looks like a glittering stone in an engagement ring.

Maybe Mars and Spica are getting hitched? :wink:

Ann
They'll be even closer in July. But it won't last. It has already been announced in the best papers that they'll be separating shortly afterwards.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Boomer12k » Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:58 am

Cool....got to have an "EYE" for that sort of thing...

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by neufer » Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:00 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spica wrote:

<<The name Spica derives from Latin spīca virginis "Virgo's ear of grain" (usually wheat).

Spica is believed to be the star that provided Hipparchus with the data that enabled him to discover the precession of the equinoxes. A temple to Menat/Hathor at Thebes was oriented with reference to Spica when it had been constructed in 3200 BC, and, over time, precession resulted in a slow but noticeable change in the location of Spica relative to the temple. Nicolaus Copernicus made many observations of Spica with his home-made triquetrum for his researches on precession.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_Zodiac wrote: <<The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the scales). This chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. The relief, which John H. Rogers characterised as "the only complete map that we have of an ancient sky", has been conjectured to represent the basis on which later astronomy systems were based. It is now on display at the Musée du Louvre. The zodiac is a planisphere or map of the stars on a plane projection, showing the 12 constellations of the zodiacal band forming 36 decans of ten days each, and the planets. These decans are groups of first-magnitude stars. These were used in the ancient Egyptian calendar, which was based on lunar cycles of around 30 days and on the heliacal rising of the star Sothis (Sirius).

The controversy around the zodiac, called the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC), Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and Jean-Baptiste Biot. Johann Karl Burckhardt and Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf held, after analysis of the zodiac, that the ancient Egyptians understood the precession of the equinoxes. Champollion, among others, believed that it was a religious zodiac. Champollion placed the zodiac in fourth century AD. Georges Cuvier placed the date 123 AD to 147 AD. His discussion of the dating question is an interesting summary of the reasoning as he understood it in the 1820's.>>
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by BDanielMayfield » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:24 pm

I see that the division of labor in Egyptian cosmology was decidedly sexist. The guys holding up the night sky got to sit down on the job, share work with a friend, and wear clothes.
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by arby » Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:37 pm

The 'ancient times' link is interesting.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by LocalColor » Wed Apr 02, 2014 4:41 pm

arby wrote:The 'ancient times' link is interesting.
That link got me laughing.

Great APOD photo today, love it.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Wed Apr 02, 2014 11:47 pm

This is a really lovely image. I've been enjoying watching Mars and Spica rising earlier week by week, and watching Mars brighten dramatically. The few telescopic views I had of Mars a few weeks ago were unremarkable, and now we've had a run of cloudy, rainy weather (very welcome, we're having a drought here in California). I'm hoping for clear skies for the opposition.
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by DavidLeodis » Thu Apr 03, 2014 11:35 am

The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.

PS. I like to at least find the date an image was taken but I was somewhat surprised to find in the image's Exif image in the Blogger website that the image create date was "2016:03:06 06:45:23 1 year, 11 months, 3 days, 55 minutes, 59 seconds ago". :!: :)

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by neufer » Thu Apr 03, 2014 3:37 pm

DavidLeodis wrote:
The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always
pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why
as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
http://www.wsanford.com/~wsanford/exo/pronunciation_guide.html wrote: SEAR-ee-us
kah-NO-puss
AL-fah sen-TAUR-eye
ark-TOOR-us
VEE-gah
kah-PELL-ah
RYE-j'l
PRO-see-on
AY-ker-nar
BET'l-jooz
BAY-tah cen-TAUR-eye
al-TAH-yir (or al-TARE)
al-DEB-ah-ran
AY-krux
an-TARE-eez
SPY-kah
PAUL-ux
foo-mal-HOUT
DEN-ebb
BAY-tah KROO-sis
REG-yoo-luss
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Apr 03, 2014 3:58 pm

DavidLeodis wrote:The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
Your pronunciation would make more sense, since that's pretty close to the way spīca is pronounced in either classical or vulgar Latin (that is, a simple long i, not a diphthong). But how words are pronounced often is more a matter of convention than any solid rules.
Chris

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:16 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
DavidLeodis wrote:The ' Pronounced "spy-kah" ' interested me as I've always pronounced it as 'spee-kah', though I don't know why as 'spy-kah' does seem the more likely pronunciation.
Your pronunciation would make more sense, since that's pretty close to the way spīca is pronounced in either classical or vulgar Latin (that is, a simple long i, not a diphthong). But how words are pronounced often is more a matter of convention than any solid rules.
Hey, let's opine about the correct pronunciations of Betelgeuse and Vega! It it's hard to apply Latin pronunciation rules to English (are we using classical Latin? vulgate/ecclesiastical?), how on Earth can anybody claim to know the single correct pronunciation of a garbled transliteration of Arabic into Latin?
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Apr 03, 2014 5:47 pm

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Hey, let's opine about the correct pronunciations of Betelgeuse and Vega! It it's hard to apply Latin pronunciation rules to English (are we using classical Latin? vulgate/ecclesiastical?), how on Earth can anybody claim to know the single correct pronunciation of a garbled transliteration of Arabic into Latin?
To the extent anything could be said to be "correct", it would only be a matter of convention. It's reasonable to consider something no longer correct when a significant number of people can't understand you!
Chris

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by geckzilla » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:13 pm

All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Just call me "geck" because "zilla" is like a last name.

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:42 pm

geckzilla wrote:All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Oh-fee-UCK-us? That's how I say it. I hope I haven't triggered anybody's nanny software. :oops:

How is arXiv pronounced?
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Chris Peterson » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:47 pm

Anthony Barreiro wrote:Oh-fee-UCK-us? That's how I say it. I hope I haven't triggered anybody's nanny software.
I'd write it "oh - fee - YOU - cuss. (Which you came very close to doing!)
How is arXiv pronounced?
Like "archive".
Chris

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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by neufer » Thu Apr 03, 2014 6:47 pm

Anthony Barreiro wrote:
geckzilla wrote:
All I need is a pronunciation key for Ophiuchus. I can't seem to remember that one. The other day I learned from owlice how to pronounce Arxiv and felt pretty silly for thinking it was pronounced ark-siv but these things always happen when you never hear anyone say them.
Oh-fee-UCK-us? That's how I say it. I hope I haven't triggered anybody's nanny software. :oops:
  • Oh-YOO-kuss'd, Tony :oops:
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Re: APOD: Mars Red and Spica Blue (2014 Apr 02)

Post by Anthony Barreiro » Thu Apr 03, 2014 11:33 pm

Chris Peterson wrote:
Anthony Barreiro wrote:How is arXiv pronounced?
Like "archive".
That's what I figured.
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