A Demi or Semi God: Hercules (Herakles)

The Labours of Hercules
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Herakles in a Greek vase painting, ca. 460–450 BC

Hercules is the divine protector of humankind the god of athletes and the guardian of the gates of Olympia,

Athena his sister helped him when he had to work on  the 12 labours.

He was 7 feet tall or 2,13 meters tall, carried a club of olive tree,  was an expert in the bow and arrow and dressed with the skin of the Nemea´s lion which was impenetrable!

There is a constellation, the fifth largest, that honors him:

 

During July, look for the pattern of stars representing the famous strongman of mythology practically directly overhead by around 10 or 11 P.M. 

"Hercules and the Corona Borealis" London, 1825 by Jehoshaphat Aspin 

 

 And what is a constellation?

 







Game: Astronomy Connections

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Astronomy Click & Learn

The Christmas Star & The 3 Magi

"The Appearance of the Star" by Giovanni Da Modena (1412)

The german astronomer Johannes Kepler proposed in 1604 that The Christmas Star followed by the 3 Wise Men to Bethlehem, was a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in 7 B.C.

Joe Raymond  /  AP

Grant Mathews, a Notre Dame astrophysicist, points at a computer generated demonstration of the night sky around the time of the birth of Jesus Christ: an unusual alignment of the sun, Jupiter, the Moon and Saturn aligned in the constellation Aries while Venus and Mars were in adjacent constellations.

Mathews believes The Three Magi were Zoroastrian astrologers who would have recognized the planetary alignment as a sign a powerful leader was born.