Canopus (Agasthya)

 

 The star-studded sky , What a wonderful sight !!

That star in the southern sky, the star Agastya, how bright it is!

 ‘What a great sage!’ we reflect. The star reminds us of his magnificent life.

It is known as Canopus  in Western countries. 

Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky. 

It is also designated α Carinae, which is Latinised to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude of −0.74, it is outshone only by Sirius.

 Located around 310 light-years from the Sun, Canopus is a bright giant of spectral type A9, so it is essentially white when seen with the naked eye.

 It has a luminosity over 10,000 times the luminosity of the Sun, is eight times as massive, and has expanded to 71 times the Sun's radius.

 Its enlarged photosphere has an effective temperature of around 

7,400 K. 

Canopus is undergoing core helium burning and is currently in the so-called blue loop phase of its evolution, having already passed through the red-giant branch after exhausting the hydrogen in its core. 

Canopus is a source of X-rays, which are likely being emitted from its corona.

Role in navigation

The southeastern wall of the Kaaba in Mecca is aligned with the rising point of Canopus, and is also named Janūb.

The Bedouin people of the Negev and Sinai knew Canopus as Suhayl, and used it and Polaris as the two principal stars for navigation at night. 

Because it disappears below the horizon in those regions, it became associated with a changeable nature, as opposed to always-visible Polaris, which was circumpolar and hence 'steadfast'.

The south celestial pole can be approximately located using Canopus and another bright star, Achernar, as the three make an equilateral triangle. 

Canopus sits on an imaginary line that extends 36° one way to Sirius and 37° to the south celestial pole.

Canopus's brightness and location well off the ecliptic make it useful for space navigation. 

Many spacecraft carry a special camera known as a "Canopus Star Tracker" plus a Sun sensor for attitude determination. 

Mariner 4 used Canopus for second axis stabilisation (after locking on the Sun) in 1964, the first time a star had been used.

Mythology 

We have  seen  in the  post on 'Argonauts ' that, 

Argo Navis was the ship used by Jason and the Argonauts in the legend of search of gold fleece.Canopus was the pilot of that ship.

The brightest star in the constellation was given the name of a ship's pilot from another Greek legend: Canopus, pilot of Menelaus' ship on his quest to retrieve Helen of Troy after she was taken by Paris.

According to Hindu  Mythology , the Vindhya mountain once competed with the Mount Meru, growing so high that it obstructed the sun. 

The sage Agastya then asked Vindhya to lower itself, in order to facilitate his passage across to the south. 

In reverence for Agastya, the Vindhya lowered its height and promised not to grow until Agastya returned to the north. 

Agastya settled in the south, and the Vindhya mountain, true to its word, never grew further.

The Vindhyas are regarded as the traditional geographical boundary between northern and southern India.

Agasthya was the first  Arya who  went to South. 

Agastya appears in numerous itihasas and Puranas including the major Ramayana and Mahabharata.

For that I have to write  another  post!!

I will tell some of them here.

Agastya Samhita also gives details of using electricity for Electroplating.

 He figured out the method of polishing copper or gold or silver by the battery, Due to such brilliant invention, Rishi Agastya is also called Kumbodbhav (Battery Born).

Lord Ishwara’s marriage! And the marriage was to be celebrated on the Himalayas, the home of the bride Parvathi. Agasthya, too, was invited.

All the gods, rakshasas, and other superhuman beings assembled there. All the monarchs and emperors of the earth and the great Rishis were there, too.

All of a sudden the earth began to wobble.

The world moved from side to side like a swing.

The mountains began sinking; the oceans were in turmoil. 

Everybody thought that the end of the world had come. They asked  Lord Ishwara to intervene. 

 Lord Ishwara calmly said,

“You have come to see the marriage of Parvathi. 

All of you are in one place. 

So the weight of the entire world rests on the Himalayas in the north. 

There must be something at the southern end to balance this weight. 

Then the earth will regain stability and calm will return. 

Agasthya alone can do this, none else.”

He called the great sage Agasthya, and said,

“You have to go to the south at once.

 By the power of your tapas (meditation and prayer) bring back the world to its normal state.”

Agasthya was very sad. But  he bowed to Parvathi and Parameshwara and left the place.

So Agasthya went to the south.

 He sat on the top of a mountain to perform tapas.

 By his holy power, he made the earth stable again.

 The marriage of Parvathi and Parameshwara was celebrated with great pomp and splendor.

 The whole world rejoiced and praised Agasthya.

Is there any connection  to Earth's precession?

(In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis.

 In particular, it can refer to the gradual shift in the orientation of Earth's axis of rotation in a cycle of approximately 26,000 years.)

The stories of  Agastya  will be continued in next post.....

Till then keep commenting....