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Read THE PEOPLE'S GUIDE TO THE COSMOS (a tutorial trek through the stars)
By R. Kerk-Hecker
Man must rise above the Earth,
to the top of the atmosphere and beyond...
for only then will he fully understand the world in which he lives.
Socrates, 469 - 399 BC
Map Of The Night Sky: January 4 - 10, 7:00 PM (CST)
(Latitude 29° North, Longitude 98° West)
Welcome Back, Orion
Like an old friend who's been away for a while (six months), the constellation Orion, the hunter, is back with us in the night sky. As soon as the sky is dark, Orion stands, like the giant he is, high in the east, the row of three stars that form his belt unmistakable, and impossible to miss. Just as unmistakable is the huge yellow/orange star Betelgeuse (BEET-el-juice), and the brilliant blue Rigel (RYE-jel).
For those with a telescope, or even a good pair of binoculars, the Orion Nebula (M42) is one of the most impressive objects in the sky. It is just barely visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch of light hanging down from Orion's belt. To the ancient Maya, Orion was arguably the most important constellation in the sky, as explained below by contributing writer, archeologist Albert Coffee.
Orion Is The Turtle
When I taught English classes to college students in Mexico, I went over and over with them the basic questions that come about when greeting or meeting someone from another place or culture for the first time. One of the first and most basic of these questions is, ‘Where were you born?’ Lately there have occurred to me, while I have been gazing up at the night sky, a few similar questions, ‘Where was the universe born?’, ‘Where was the Earth born?’, ‘Where was I born?’
To the Maya the birthplace of everything was Orion. To know what Orion meant to the ancient Maya is to know their story of creation which tells of the Milky Way symbolized as a great Ceiba tree, “the world tree”, raised up by the god considered the first father, the god of maize and creator as he sprouted from Orion. He sprang up from a cleft in the turtle’s back, from a cleft in the first mountain.
The turtle and the turtle’s back (‘first mountain’) is the Mayan symbol for the three stars most commonly known as Orion’s Belt. It is the place from which the maize god was resurrected. To them the three stars Alnitak, Saiph and Rigel, which form a triangle and part of Orion itself, are the ‘three stones of the hearth’ or the ‘creation stones’ and the cloudy form of Nebula M42 that they enclose is the smoke rising from the center. This is the place from which was first raised the sky from the ocean which lay in darkness and where was struck the first fire of creation by the gods who participated in that event. Heaven to the Maya was called ‘raised up sky’. The present day Maya still place three stones as a hearth in their homes. To this day the Yucatec Maya refer to Orion as ‘first three stone place’.
According to the Popul Vuh, the Mayan bible as transcribed by the elders of the Quiche Maya of highland Guatemala in the late 16th century, the young maize god was nurtured with water as he grew from a cleft in the turtle’s back by his twin sons, the twin heroes. Hunahpu and Xpalanque resurrected their father from Xibalba, the underworld, of which there are nine levels. He had been sacrificed there by the gods of Xibalba after losing in a ballgame in which he and his brother had been pitted against them.
Orion to the Maya is the center of Heaven, lying at the 13th and highest level of heaven. It is their version of Genesis that describes creation and is reflected in the night sky year after year as the Milky Way stands up from north to south through the zenith, rising from Orion, every year on August 13th. The Mayan calender moves in cycles of day and night, dark and light, heaven and hell. Their expertise in deciphering long term calendrical patterns gave them the ability to predict the future in terms of these energy cycles as reflected in world events. As I have been watching the news lately another question has occurred to me. When Orion moves away from us and out of sight for six months, could it be that heaven is leaving us for half of the year? If that is true, all the more reason to step outside tonight, and welcome Orion back.
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Current Solar Flare (X-ray) activity :
Current Status of Solar Geomagnetic Field : |
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(Updated every ten minutes from the NOAA Space Environment Center through n3kl.org.) |
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Sunday, Jan 4 |
Monday, Jan 5 |
Tuesday, Jan 6 |
Wednesday, Jan 7 |
Thursday, Jan 8 |
Friday, Jan 9 |
Saturday, Jan 10 |
| Sunrise |
7:26 am |
7:27 am |
7:27 am |
7:27 am |
7:27 am |
7:27 am |
7:27 am |
| Sunset |
5:48 pm |
5:49 pm |
5:50 pm |
5:50 pm |
5:51 pm |
5:52 pm |
5:53 pm |
| Moonrise |
12:07 pm |
12:43 pm |
1:24 pm |
2:14 pm |
3:14 pm |
4:22 pm |
5:35 pm |
| Moonset |
1:30 am tue |
2:35 am wed |
3:44 am thur |
4:55 am fri |
6:03 am sat |
7:04 am sun |
7:57 am mon |
| Moon Phases |
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