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A typical navagraha shrine found inside a Hindu temple. The term planet was applied originally only to the five planets known (i.e., visible to the naked eye) and excluded the Earth. The term was later generalized, particularly during the Middle Ages, to include the sun and the moon (sometimes referred to as "lights"), making a total of seven ...
Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, is named after the Roman god of war because of its blood red color. Mars has two small, oddly-shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos, named after the sons of the Greek god Ares. At some point in the future Phobos will be broken up by gravitational forces. The atmosphere on Mars is 95% carbon dioxide.
It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol, representing Neptune's trident. [ e ] Neptune is not visible to the unaided eye and is the only planet in the Solar System that was not initially observed by direct empirical observation .
Size (left) and distance (right) of a few well-known galaxies put to scale. There are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in all of the observable universe. [1] On the order of 100,000 galaxies make up the Local Supercluster, and about 51 galaxies are in the Local Group (see list of nearest galaxies for a complete list).
Initially, the names given to minor planets followed the same pattern as the other planets: names from Greek or Roman myths, with a preference for female names. With the discovery in 1898 of the first body found to cross the orbit of Mars, a different choice was deemed appropriate, and 433 Eros was chosen.
Worship of heavenly bodies is in Islamic tradition strongly associated with Sabians who allegedly stated that God created the planets as the rulers of this world and thus deserve worship. [67] While the planetary worship was linked to devils ( shayāṭīn ), [ 68 ] abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi reported that the planets are considered angelic spirits ...
In both the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, Jupiter was named after the chief god of the divine pantheon: Zeus to the Greeks and Jupiter to the Romans. [19] The International Astronomical Union formally adopted the name Jupiter for the planet in 1976 and has since named its newly discovered satellites for the god's lovers, favourites, and descendants. [20]
The Babylonians named Venus after the Sumerian goddess of love with the Akkadian name Ishtar; Mars after their god of war, Nergal; Mercury after their god of wisdom Nabu; and Jupiter after their chief god, Marduk. [222] There are too many concordances between Greek and Babylonian naming conventions for them to have arisen separately. [164]