Reach for the stars !
By DAVID H . LEVY
Editorial Board Member
Welcome to the second issue of the newly revised Sky ’ s Up magazine , carefully edited now by Marcelo Souza . Our goal is to inspire our readers to look up at the sky , feel its magic , and enjoy the night . I have been doing this almost every night since I was a child , growing up in Montreal , Canada , in 1960 . It is easy . You do not need a Ph . D ..; in fact , it helps if you do not have one . All you need are two good eyes , an inquiring mind , and the desire to go out of doors after dark , and look up . Many children – and adults – are afraid of the dark . I have never been ; on the contrary I find the onset of night a pleasant and relaxing experience . Going out and looking up , watching the first stars appear , always lessens the cares of the day . And as more stars appear , these cares vanish altogether and I am left with the joy of wondering what is up there . Has anything changed since last night ? Any surprises I am not expecting ? This is the magic that the poetry of the night sky offers every evening . As you read this magazine , I hope it will offer you the same . a guide to the sky
The Milky Way : Our address in the Universe
By MARCELO DE OLIVEIRA SOUZA
Sky ’ s Up Editor In a region with no artificial lighting , it is possible to perceive a light streak across the sky . Milky path in the firmament . Kuklos galaxies , dairy circle , for the Greeks . Milky Way , for the Romans . Mayu , heavenly river , for the Incas . Tapi ’ ir Rapé , way of the Tapir , for the Tembé Indians , a Brazilian tribe . For countless years , various civilizations have observed this whitish streak in the night sky . For the ancient civilizations , a mysterious track . Source for legends . In Greek mythology , Hercules was the son of the god Zeus with Alcmena , a mortal . In order to transform Hercules into an immortal , Zeus puts him as a baby to suck the milk from his wife , the goddess Hera , while she slept . Hera wakes up scared away from the baby . The milk that spills from her breasts forms the Milky Way in the sky . The stars Vega , from the constellation of Lira , and Altair , from the constellation of Eagle , are very bright and appear to be separated by the Milky Way . In an ancient Chinese legend , they represent the boy Kengyu and princess Orihime . They were in love . The romance drove them away from their obligations . A fact that irritated Orihime ’ s father , who decided to distance them so that they could fulfill their tasks . He placed them on opposite sides of the Milky Way . His daughter was very sad about the separation . Sensitized , her father decided that they could meet once a year , on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar . On that day the Japanese , from a Chinese tradition , celebrate Tanabata every year . The Festival of the stars . One of the most popular festivals in Japan .
Stories ... A brief trip through the world of imagination ... The Milky Way in large cities it is overshadowed by artificial lighting . Today , in dreams , a sea of stars shining smiles and hope . Illuminating life . Showing the path of wisdom . César Lattes , a brilliant Brazilian physicist , always said that “ wisdom does not enter into an evil soul at all ”. Guarantee for humanity . With the use of telescopes , it was possible to see that the milky way was composed of an enormous number of stars . Galileo Galilei , in 1610 , was the pioneer in reporting this observation . The Englishman Thomas Wright in 1750 proposes that the stars , including the Sun , are in the shell , with a finite thickness , of a sphere with a gigantic radius . The center of the sphere was divine . It was a way of imagining why we saw a large concentration of stars only in one strip of the sky . As an alternative model he proposes that the stars , including the Sun , could be in the shell of a ring . The German Imannuel Kant , influenced by Wright ’ s proposal , proposes that the Milky Way was shaped like a thick disk , like a coin . As we are on the disk , we see a large concentration of stars when we look from the side and a lower concentration of stars when we look up and down . We stop living in a region composed of five more planets , the Sun , and the Moon , and limited by a layer of fixed stars , as imagined by the Greeks , to live around a star , like so many others in our galaxy , the Milky Way . Our address in the Universe . With the development of new observation instruments , more and more accurate information about the Universe was gradually obtained . We envision a new shape for the galaxy in which
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