Back Pleiadene (astromytologi) NB Plêiades no folclore e literatura Portuguese நாட்டுப்புறவியலிலும் இலக்கியத்திலும் கார்த்திகை விண்மீன் Tamil
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The high visibility of the star cluster Pleiades in the night sky and its position along the ecliptic (which approximates to the Solar System's common planetary plane) has given it importance in many cultures, ancient and modern. Its heliacal rising, which moves through the seasons over millennia (see precession) was nonetheless a date of folklore or ritual for various ancestral groups, so too its yearly heliacal setting.[2]
As noted by scholar Stith Thompson, the constellation was "nearly always imagined" as a group of seven sisters, and their myths explain why there are only six.[3] Some scientists suggest that these may come from observations back when Pleione was further from Atlas and more visible as a separate star as far back as 100,000 BC.[4]
- ^ "Ancient Constellations over ALMA". ESO Picture of the Week. Retrieved 26 November 2013.
- ^ Brad Schaefer (Yale University). Heliacal Rising: Definitions, Calculations, and some Specific Cases (Essays from Archaeoastronomy & Ethnoastronomy News, the Quarterly Bulletin of the Center for Archaeoastronomy, Number 25.)
- ^ Thompson, Stith (1977). The Folktale. University of California Press. pp. 237-238. ISBN 0-520-03537-2.
- ^ Norris, Ray P., Norris, Barnaby R.M. (2021). Why Are There Seven Sisters?. In: Boutsikas, E., McCluskey, S.C., Steele, J. (eds) Advancing Cultural Astronomy. Historical & Cultural Astronomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64606-6_11