Leo loses his tail. We gain a constellation
Tonight chart shows the sky high to the south around mid-evening. To the upper left of the constellation Leo the Lion are dozens of very faint stars. They make up the constellation Coma Berenices, otherwise known as Berenice’s Hair. You need a dark sky to appreciate the constellation Coma Berenices. If you have one … it’s very beautiful.
The Greek-Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy and others considered these stars the tuft at the end of Leo the Lion’s tail. Coma Berenices remained part of Leo until a few hundred years ago, when it was first listed as a separate constellation.
The story goes that an ancient Egyptian queen, Berenice, feared for her husband’s life as he went into battle. She prayed to Aphrodite, promising to cut off her long, luxurious curls if the king returned safely. He did, and Berenice kept her promise and cut off her hair, placing it as a sacrifice on Aphrodite’s altar.
But the next day the hair was gone!
The king was enraged that the temple priests had not protected the precious locks. A quick-thinking astronomer saved the day, or rather night, by pointing to the cascading stars at the end of Leo’s tail. He told the king that these were the queen’s tresses placed in the sky by Aphrodite for all to see.
The king and queen were appeased, and no priests were beheaded.
Bottom line: A clump of faint stars trailing the constellation Leo once represented the Lion’s tail – but now these stars are known as Coma Berenices, the hair of a queen.
Author
Larry Sessions
Larry Sessions writes for EarthSky about astronomy and other topics related to physical science, emphasizing observations that can be made with little or no equipment. He also writes and maintains his own astronomy website, as well as class websites for the classes he teaches. His North American Skies website has earned a one of “Ten Cool Sites” recognition by the Exploratorium, and the Griffith Observatory Star Award.
A former planetarium director in Little Rock, Fort Worth and Denver, Larry currently is an adjunct faculty member at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and at the Community College of Aurora (CCA, Colorado). He is a co-recipient of the 2010 Tom Brosh Adjunct Faculty Award at CCA, and a former longtime member of “Solar System Ambassadors” program of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For six years he was a contributing writer for the Sky Calendar on Space.com. In addition, he was formerly the managing editor at the Denver Museum of Natural History, as well as for the award-winning “Weather Guide” calendar from Accord Publishing. His articles have appeared in numerous publications including Sky & Telescope, Astronomy and Rolling Stone. His small book on world star lore, Constellations, was published by Running Press.
Larry is a former member the SouthWestern Association of Planetariums. He lives in Denver with his wife, Marlene, and their two dogs, Mikatsuki (“New Moon”) and Yoshi (“Lucky”).
Article published on EarthSky
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