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The Maya considered Venus to be the most important celestial body after the Sun and Moon. They called it Chac ek, [281] or Noh Ek', "the Great Star". [282] The cycles of Venus were important to their calendar and were described in some of their books such as Maya Codex of Mexico and Dresden Codex.
The adjectival forms of the names of astronomical bodies are not always easily predictable. Attested adjectival forms of the larger bodies are listed below, along with the two small Martian moons; in some cases they are accompanied by their demonymic equivalents, which denote hypothetical inhabitants of these bodies.
A primary star, which is brighter and typically bigger than its companion stars, is designated by a capitalized A. Its companions are labelled B, C, and so on. For example, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, is actually a double star, consisting of the naked-eye visible Sirius A and its dim white-dwarf companion Sirius B.
In classical mythology, Lucifer ("light-bringer" in Latin) was the name of the planet Venus as the morning star (as the evening star it was called Vesper), and it was often personified as a male figure bearing a torch. Lucifer was said to be "the fabled son of Aurora [3] and Cephalus, and father of Ceyx". He was often presented in poetry as ...
However, the increasing number of moons that were being discovered in the 21st century caused the IAU to draw up a new scheme for the outer moons. At the IAU General Assembly in July 2004, [ 2 ] the WGPSN allowed satellites of Saturn to have names of giants and monsters in mythologies other than the Greco-Roman.
The origins of the planetary symbols can be found in the attributes given to classical deities. The Roman planisphere of Bianchini (2nd century, currently in the Louvre, inv. Ma 540) [2] shows the seven planets represented by portraits of the seven corresponding gods, each a bust with a halo and an iconic object or dress, as follows: Mercury has a caduceus and a winged cap; Venus has a ...
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The Aboriginal "Emu in the sky".In Western astronomy terms, the Southern Cross is on the right, and Scorpius on the left; the head of the emu is the Coalsack.. A constellation used almost everywhere in Australian Aboriginal culture is the "Emu in the Sky", which consists of dark nebulae (opaque clouds of dust and gas in outer space) that are visible against the (centre and other sectors of the ...