The Pole Star
Polaris |
 |
 |
Astronomical Information |
|
 |
Perhaps more than any star other than our Sun, Polaris has
been regarded as the most important star in the heavens. Located
almost directly overhead as seen from the North Pole, it is the end-star
in the tail of Ursa Minor, the Little Bear. Its name comes from the
Latin, Stella Polaris, meaning "Pole Star." Polaris has long been
an important star to sailors and caravans of old winding their way over
the desert by night, and others who navigated their way by stars. |
|
To our eyes, Polaris appears to be motionless at the center
of the field of circumpolar stars. All the other stars appear to
circle about Polaris. As early as 320 B.C. the Greeks had realized
that Polaris did not mark the pole exactly. Until then many people
had believed that the heavenly pole was absolutely and eternally fixed.
Not so. Polaris has long been moving nearer the North Celestial Pole,
as it is still doing now. It will be closest to that position around
A.D. 2105--27'. Currently it is about 1° from the celestial pole. |
|
The Pole Star once was Thuban (3000 B.C.), the third star
from the end of the tail in Draco. In a little more than 5,000 years
from now, Alderamin, the brightest star in the constellation Cepheus, will
be the Pole Star. About 7,000 years from now, Deneb, the brightest
star in Cygnus, will be the Pole Star for a while. In about 12,000
years from now, Vega, the brightest star in Lyra, will be the Pole Star.
Vega will be a brilliant Pole Star some six times brighter than Polaris.
There are long periods when there is no Pole Star at all. At the
present time there is no Pole Star in the southern sky. |
|
Mythology and History |
|
|
Polaris has been known by many names in the past--the Lodestar,
the Steering Star, the Ship Star, and Stella Maris ("Star of the Sea").
In China it was known as Tou Mu, Chinese goddess of the North Star.
Greek navigators of old called Polaris Kynosoura, which means the "Dog's
Tail." The name came into our English language as cynosure, which
means "something that strongly attract attention by its central position." |
|
In Scandinavian mythology the Norse gods made the Universe
out of the bits and pieces of the hacked-up bodies of their defeated enemies.
To finish the job they hammered an enormous spike, called Veralder Nagli,
or "World Spike," into the center of the Universe and made the sky revolve
about it. The end of the spike had a jeweled nail-head, which remained
forever fixed on the great sky dome as Polaris. |
|
The Omaha Indian story begins during a time of tribal disruption,
brought on by rivalries between Omaha chiefs. One of their
sons left the village and went out on a hunt. While the council of
chiefs was meeting to see if it could find a way to keep the tribe together
and save it from extinction, the son of the chief lost his way in the forest.
Disoriented and unable to return to camp, he pushed back the brush in an
attempt to spot Mika Em Thi Ashi, the "Star That Does Not Walk."
He hoped to use the Pole Star to guide his way home. |
Instead he spotted a burning light in the distance.
Thinking it was a campfire he headed for it. But when he got close
enough to tell what it was, he discovered the light was produced by a burning
tree. It was a supernatural tree, however, for despite the roaring
flames around the trunk and throughout the branches, it remained unconsumed.
When he touched it to test the heat of the fire, he discovered it was cool.
Realizing he had encountered something extraordinary, he kept an eye on
the flaming tree until dawn, and at sunrise, it returned to normal.
The whole experience was so uncanny, he decided to stay another night and
watch the fireworks once more. As the sky turned dark, the tree began
to glow with the same magical fire.
By the next morning, the chief's son
must have figured out how to find his way home, for he returned to his
father and described what he had seen. They went back to the tree
together to catch its next performance.
His father noticed that the Thunderbirds
trailed fire when they arrived at the tree or departed. Each Thunderbird
traveled from one of the world's Four Winds, and their flights and falling
flame guaranteed four paths would be scorched to coincide with the four
cardinal directions. Pilgrimages the forest animals had made to the
tree had worn the four paths smooth with their footsteps.
Whenever the four Thunderbirds took
their perches on the tree, it burst into the magical flames first seen
by the chief's son, but the light from this fire could only be seen at
night. The chief declared the tree to be a gift from Wakonda, the
Great Spirit within all life and existence. Wakonda is the source
of the world's rightness, or order. According to the Omaha, he "causes
day to follow night without variation and summer to follow winter." They
add, "We can depend on these regular changes and order our lives by them."
Concluding that the wonderful ever-burning
tree would be just the emblem needed to keep the Omaha people from dispersing,
the chief returned to the tribe to tell them about this miraculous tree.
At his recommendation, a party of Omaha warriors went back to the tree
in full regalia, ceremonially attacked the tree, cut it down, and brought
it back to their village. There they reerected it and put responsibility
for its keeping into the hands of a single clan, a clan designated to be
the caretakers. Leadership of the tribe was invested in the keepers
of the pole, and only through them could authority over the tribe be transferred.
Through this tree, now transformed into the Sacred Pole, the threatened
social order of the Omaha was strengthened. Problems, disagreements,
and troubles were all to be brought, with presents and prayers, to the
Sacred Pole. [Beyond the Blue Horizon: Myth & Legends of the
Sun, Moon, Stars, & Planets by Dr. E.C. Krupp © 1991]
|
The Arabs of old regarded Polaris as a hole in the sky in
which Earth's axis found its bearing. They looked on the star as
an evil star, calling it Al Kiblah, because it was the star "least distant
from the pole." It was Polaris, they said, who had slain the great
warrior of the sky who forever lies in the huge coffin outlined by the
stars marking the Big Dipper. All the other stars mourn for their
lost hero and each night march slowly around the sky in a never-ending
funeral procession. The villain, Polaris, alone is kept motionless,
an outcast forever fixed to the coldest part of the northern sky. |
|
The Moguls looked on Polaris as holding the Universe together.
They called it the Golden Peg. |
|
Astronomers of India called Polaris the Pivot of the Planets. |
back to Constellation Table
- Planetarium Home Page
|
