Jan 18, 2021 23:00:00

Astronomers say Subaru's 'six-binary star' may have been a 'seven-binary star' 100,000 years ago

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Subaru ', which is the origin of the name of the automobile manufacturer SUBARU, and 'Pleiades', the scattered star group in the constellation of Oshi, are known as 'six consecutive stars' as depicted in the SUBARU logo mark. This is because you can see more stars with a telescope, but you can see about six with the naked eye. However, astronomers have suggested that in the past it might have been clearly seen as a 'seven-star'.

The world's oldest story? Astronomers say global myths about'seven sisters' stars may reach back 100,000 years
https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-oldest-story-astronomers-say-global-myths-about-seven-sisters-stars-may-reach-back-100-000-years-151568

According to Professor Ray Norris of Western Sydney University, the Pleiades star cluster is treated as '7 sisters' in many cultures including Greek mythology.

In Greek mythology, the daughters of the Titan hero Atlas and the lower goddess (nymph) Pleione, seven of whom are Maia, Electra, Taygete, Arcuone, Keraeno, Astelope, and Melope are called 'Pleiades'. I will.

When the battle between the Olympus gods led by Zeus and the Titan gods led by Kronos took place, the Olympus side won and most of the Titan gods were sent to the underworld (Tartaros), but only Atlas, the sky at the western end of the world. I was given a heavy punishment to support.

In the absence of Atlas, Pleiades was chased by the amorous Orion, the number one hunter in Greek mythology, and became a star at Zeus's discretion.

Since it is 7 sisters, it should be 7 stars, but for reasons such as 'one of the sisters fell in love with humans and began to hide', the number of stars is 6 stars, which is one less. , It is left in the folklore of various places.

According to Professor Norris, this type of folklore has been passed down to Europe, Africa, Asia, Indonesia, Native Americans and Aborigines (Aboriginal people). Initially, the professor suspected that Europeans brought Greek mythology to Australia, but Aboriginal folklore appeared to have come before contact with Europeans. In this case, Aborigini has had little contact with other cultures for 50,000 years, which means that a similar tradition has existed in the world for quite some time.

Professor Norris speculates that the reason why folklore is scattered around the world is the position of the stars in the Pleiades cluster. In other words, if the position of the star was 100,000 years ago, as of 2020, the stars that seemed to overlap were separated, so it looked like '7 stars' instead of '6 stars'.

In fact, even in observations using the Gaia Space Telescope etc., the two stars almost overlap and look like one star. From this, it seems that the tradition of the '7 sisters' existed 100,000 years before human beings left Africa, and has since been spoken in various places.

If this is the case, the story about Pleiades may be the oldest story in the world.

In fact, Pleiades has not only seven sisters, but also stars named after their father, Atlas, and mother, Pleione. According to Professor Norris, the positional relationship between 2020 (top) and 100,000 years ago (bottom) is as follows.

If you arrange seven in order of magnitude indicating the brightness of the stars, they will be Alcyone, Atlas, Electra, Maia, Melope, Taygete, and Pleione, and since Pleione overlaps with Atlas, the episode of Sister Unun does not apply.