Greek Mythology in Astronomy

The creatures and deities in Greek mythology are said to have connection with the astronomy and the star constellations. In this fragment of Hesiod's poem “Nymphs like the Graces, Phaesyle and Coronis and rich-crowned Cleeia and lovely Phaeo and long-robed Eudora, whom the tribes of men upon the earth call Hyades.” (Hesiod, Homeric Hymns, Epic Cycle, Homerica. 1922) titled Astronomy, he mentioned and catalogued many of the constellations based on creatures and gods in greek mythology.

Mythological aspect of the astronomy are mostly covered on the northern hemisphere, which includes the 12 zodiac constellations and some other constellations. The zodiac constellations formed an imaginary circle which the sun, moon, and seven of the nine planets orbited in the space, for example the Taurus which symbolizes the bull which describe zeus, and the form he took when he carried off the phoenician maiden, Europa.

The other constellations are the constellations located out of the imaginary circle or the "zodiac circle". One example of the constellations are the Canis Major or "Great Dog" which describe several dogs that appeared in many classical myths. One of the story about it is from the book written by Hyginus titled Poetica Astronomica:

"He is said to have been given by Jove as a guardian for Europa, and later to have come to Minos. When Minos was ill, Procris, wife of Cephalus, is said to have cured him, and received the dog as a reward for her services, as she was very fond of hunting and the dog was so swift that no beast could escape. After her death the dog came to Cephalus her husband, who brought it to Thebes with him when he came. There was a fox there which was said to be so swift that it could outrun all dogs. So when the two animals met, Jupiter, in a dilemma, as Istrus says, changed them both to stone. Some have said that this is the dog of Orion, and because Orion was devoted to hunting, the dog was put with him among the stars.

Others have called it the dog of Icarus." (Hyginus, C. Julius, Poetica astronomica)

The other constellations can be added into zodiac constellations when the orbit of the planet passes certain constellations, for example, the Ophiuscus which bear the serpent sign that was recently added as the 13th zodiac sign.

In addition to the constellations, mythological aspect of the astronomy also talks about the other heavenly bodies like the star clusters, galaxies, and nebulaes. Unlike constellations that most of them have mythical backgrounds, only few heavenly bodies have mythical backgrounds like Pleiades, Andromeda and Milky Way.

However, constellations and the heavenly bodies have some similarities, and one of it is that they both have some unique way to be catalogued. The heavenly bodies have three different catalogue developed by three different people. The catalogue usually have prefix attached with numbers on it.

The first catalogue are the Messier catalogue developed by Charles Messier, the catalogue uses the prefix "M" before the number and had catalogued around 109 clusters, nebulae, and galaxies in 1786. This catalogue are still used today. The second catalogue system is the new general catalogue or also known as the "NGC", this catalogue was developed by Johan Ludvig Emil Dreyer in 1888 and has catalogued over 8000 objects. The last one is the index catalogue (IC) which was developed by J.L.E Dreyer, based on www.ngcicproject.org, the index catalogue gives notes and correction to the new general catalogue on the year 1888 to 1894 and add some findings on the year 1895 to 1907.

The association of gods and the planets also worth mentioning if we talk about mythology and astronomy. Especially due to the facts that most of the planets today have the name of the gods, also on the old days, the ancient Greeks views the planets as a "wandering stars". They also included sun and moon as a planet and was governed by titan and titaness. They also didn't add the planet that wasn't visible to the human eye at that time, so at that time, Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune wasn't included into the planetary list by the ancient astronomers.