Misplaced Pages

#362637

72-733: Little Dog can refer to: Canis Minor , the constellation Little Dog (TV series) , a Canadian television comedy-drama series LittleDog , a small quadruped robot developed by Boston Dynamics for research in 2010 Little Dog Mountain , in Montana Little Dog Island , in Tasmania Little Seal Dog Island , in the British Virgin Islands See also [ edit ] Big Dog (disambiguation) Topics referred to by

144-514: A comet swings by the Sun in its orbit , some of its ice vaporizes, and a certain number of meteoroids will be shed. The meteoroids spread out along the entire trajectory of the comet to form a meteoroid stream, also known as a "dust trail" (as opposed to a comet's "gas tail" caused by the tiny particles that are quickly blown away by solar radiation pressure). Recently, Peter Jenniskens has argued that most of our short-period meteor showers are not from

216-492: A compromise between the maximum number of meteors available for viewing and the brightening sky, which makes them harder to see. Meteor showers are named after the nearest constellation, or bright star with a Greek or Roman letter assigned that is close to the radiant position at the peak of the shower, whereby the grammatical declension of the Latin possessive form is replaced by "id" or "ids." Hence, meteors radiating from near

288-441: A diameter of 80,000 light-years (25,000 parsecs). Named as a single object by Herschel, NGC 2402 is actually a pair of near-adjacent galaxies that appear to be interacting with each other. Only of fourteenth and fifteenth magnitudes, respectively, the elliptical and spiral galaxy are thought to be approximately 245 million light-years distant, and each measure 55,000 light-years in diameter. The 11 Canis-Minorids, also called

360-551: A different constellation, "the position of the water". This constellation was located in the Red Bird, the southern portion of the sky. Polynesian peoples often did not recognize Canis Minor as a constellation, but they saw Procyon as significant and often named it; in the Tuamotu Archipelago it was known as Hiro , meaning "twist as a thread of coconut fiber", and Kopu-nui-o-Hiro ("great paunch of Hiro"), which

432-668: A dog; in his Book of the Fixed Stars , Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi included a diagram of the constellation with a canine figure superimposed. There was one slight difference between the Ptolemaic vision of Canis Minor and the Arabic; al-Sufi claims Mirzam , now assigned to Orion , as part of both Canis Minor—the collar of the dog—and its modern home. The Arabic names for both Procyon and Gomeisa alluded to their proximity and resemblance to Sirius, though they were not direct translations of

504-594: A link. They last from 4 to 15 December, peaking over 10 and 11 December. Meteor shower A meteor shower in August 1583 was recorded in the Timbuktu manuscripts . In the modern era, the first great meteor storm was the Leonids of November 1833. One estimate is a peak rate of over one hundred thousand meteors an hour, but another, done as the storm abated, estimated more than two hundred thousand meteors during

576-509: A meteor storm, peaking at rates of thousands of meteors per hour. Leonid storms gave birth to the term meteor shower when it was first realised that, during the November 1833 storm, the meteors radiated from near the star Gamma Leonis. The last Leonid storms were in 1999, 2001 (two), and 2002 (two). Before that, there were storms in 1767, 1799, 1833, 1866, 1867, and 1966. When the Leonid shower

648-506: A multiple system, consisting of the spectroscopic binary Gamma A and three optical companions, Gamma B, magnitude 13; Gamma C, magnitude 12; and Gamma D, magnitude 10. The two components of Gamma A orbit each other every 389.2 days, with an eccentric orbit that takes their separation between 2.3 and 1.4 astronomical units (AU). Epsilon Canis Minoris is a yellow bright giant of spectral class G6.5IIb of magnitude of 4.99. It lies 730–810 light-years (220–250 parsecs) from Earth, with 13 times

720-491: A part of any shower. These random meteors will not appear to come from the radiant of the leading shower. In most years, the most visible meteor shower is the Perseids , which peak on 12 August of each year at over one meteor per minute. NASA has a tool to calculate how many meteors per hour are visible from one's observing location. The Leonid meteor shower peaks around 17 November of each year. The Leonid shower produces

792-466: A single vanishing point on the horizon. Meteor showers are normally named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate. This "fixed point" slowly moves across the sky during the night due to the Earth turning on its axis, the same reason the stars appear to slowly march across the sky. The radiant also moves slightly from night to night against the background stars (radiant drift) due to

SECTION 10

#1732787433363

864-503: Is 136 light-years (42 parsecs) distant. The last of the trio, Delta (also known as 9 Canis Minoris), is a white main sequence star of spectral type A0Vnn and magnitude 5.83 which is 680 light-years (210 parsecs) distant. These stars mark the paws of the Lesser Dog's left hind leg, while magnitude 5.13 Zeta marks the right. A blue-white bright giant of spectral type B8II, Zeta lies around 623 light-years (191 parsecs) away from

936-569: Is a group of five thirteenth- and fourteenth-magnitude stars that appear to lie close together in the sky but are not related. A similar situation has occurred with NGC 2394 , also in Canis Minor. This is a collection of fifteen unrelated stars of ninth magnitude and fainter. Herschel also observed three faint galaxies, two of which are interacting with each other. NGC 2508 is a lenticular galaxy of thirteenth magnitude, estimated at 205 million light-years' distance (63 million parsecs) with

1008-499: Is a remote binary star system where a white dwarf and low-mass star orbit each other close enough for the former star to draw material off the latter and form an accretion disc . This material builds up until it erupts dramatically. The Milky Way passes through much of Canis Minor, yet it has few deep-sky objects . William Herschel recorded four objects in his 1786 work Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars , including two he mistakenly believed were star clusters. NGC 2459

1080-497: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Canis Minor Canis Minor is a small constellation in the northern celestial hemisphere . In the second century, it was included as an asterism , or pattern, of two stars in Ptolemy 's 48 constellations, and it is counted among the 88 modern constellations . Its name is Latin for "lesser dog", in contrast to Canis Major ,

1152-399: Is located on the dog's belly, and Gomeisa on its neck. Gamma , Epsilon and Eta Canis Minoris lie nearby, marking the dog's neck, crown and chest, respectively. Although it has an apparent magnitude of 4.34, Gamma Canis Minoris is an orange K-type giant of spectral class K3-III C, which lies 318 light-years (97 parsecs) away. Its colour is obvious when seen through binoculars. It is

1224-841: Is not storming , it is less active than the Perseids. See the Infographics on Meteor Shower Calendar-2021 on the right. Official names are given in the International Astronomical Union's list of meteor showers. Any other Solar System body with a reasonably transparent atmosphere can also have meteor showers. As the Moon is in the neighborhood of Earth it can experience the same showers, but will have its own phenomena due to its lack of an atmosphere per se , such as vastly increasing its sodium tail . NASA now maintains an ongoing database of observed impacts on

1296-457: Is of spectral type A5IV, and ranges between magnitudes 6.44 and 6.51 over a period of 2.3 hours. AD has a spectral type of F2III, and has a maximum magnitude of 9.21 and minimum of 9.51, with a period of approximately 2.95 hours. BI is of spectral type F2 with an apparent magnitude varying around 9.19 and a period of approximately 2.91 hours. At least three red giants are Mira variables in Canis Minor. S Canis Minoris , of spectral type M7e,

1368-602: Is only 12.39 light-years (3.80 parsecs) away. Fainter still is PSS 544-7 , an eighteenth-magnitude red dwarf around 20 per cent the mass of the Sun, located 685 light-years (210 parsecs) from Earth. First noticed in 1991, it is thought to be a cannonball star, shot out of a star cluster and now moving rapidly through space directly away from the galactic disc . The WZ Sagittae -type dwarf nova DY Canis Minoris (also known as VSX J074727.6+065050 ) flared up to magnitude 11.4 over January and February 2008 before dropping eight magnitudes to around 19.5 over approximately 80 days. It

1440-448: Is simple celestial mechanics  – the material drifts only a little laterally away from the comet while drifting ahead or behind the comet because some particles make a wider orbit than others. These dust trails are sometimes observed in comet images taken at mid infrared wavelengths (heat radiation), where dust particles from the previous return to the Sun are spread along the orbit of the comet (see figures). The gravitational pull of

1512-485: Is surrounded by a disk of gas which it heats and causes to emit radiation. Johann Bayer used the Greek letters Alpha to Eta to label the most prominent eight stars in the constellation, designating two stars as Delta (named Delta and Delta ). John Flamsteed numbered fourteen stars, discerning a third star he named Delta ; his star 12 Canis Minoris was not found subsequently. In Bayer's 1603 work Uranometria , Procyon

SECTION 20

#1732787433363

1584-509: Is the eighth-brightest star in the night sky, as well as one of the closest . A yellow-white main-sequence star, it has a white dwarf companion . Gomeisa is a blue-white main-sequence star. Luyten's Star is a ninth-magnitude red dwarf and the Solar System 's next closest stellar neighbour in the constellation after Procyon. Additionally, Procyon and Luyten's Star are only 1.12 light-years away from each other, and Procyon would be

1656-459: Is the eighth-brightest star in the night sky, as well as one of the closest . Its name means "before the dog" or "preceding the dog" in Greek, as it rises an hour before the "Dog Star", Sirius , of Canis Major. It is a binary star system, consisting of a yellow-white main-sequence star of spectral type F5 IV-V, named Procyon A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA, named Procyon B. Procyon B, which orbits

1728-434: Is the brightest, ranging from magnitude 6.6 to 13.2 over a period of 332.94 days. V Canis Minoris ranges from magnitude 7.4 to 15.1 over a period of 366.1 days. Similar in magnitude is R Canis Minoris , which has a maximum of 7.3, but a significantly brighter minimum of 11.6. An S-type star , it has a period of 337.8 days. YZ Canis Minoris is a red dwarf of spectral type M4.5V and magnitude 11.2, roughly three times

1800-590: The Three Stars Each tablets, dating to around 1100 BC. In the later MUL.APIN , this name was also applied to the pairs of Pi and Pi Orionis and Zeta and Xi Orionis . The meaning of MASH.TAB.BA evolved as well, becoming the twin deities Lulal and Latarak , who are on the opposite side of the sky from Papsukkal , the True Shepherd of Heaven in Babylonian mythology . Canis Minor

1872-590: The Northern Territory in Australia gave Procyon and Gomeisa the names Magum and Gurumana , describing them as humans who were transformed into gum trees in the dreamtime . Although their skin had turned to bark, they were able to speak with a human voice by rustling their leaves. The Aztec calendar was related to their cosmology . The stars of Canis Minor were incorporated along with some stars of Orion and Gemini into an asterism associated with

1944-409: The Solar System , it is a blue-white main-sequence star of spectral class B8 Ve. Although fainter to Earth observers, it is much brighter than Procyon, and is 250 times as luminous and three times as massive as the Sun. Although its variations are slight, Gomeisa is classified as a shell star (Gamma Cassiopeiae variable), with a maximum magnitude of 2.84 and a minimum magnitude of 2.92. It

2016-497: The Sun . The "ice" may be water , methane , ammonia , or other volatiles , alone or in combination. The "rock" may vary in size from a dust mote to a small boulder. Dust mote sized solids are orders of magnitude more common than those the size of sand grains, which, in turn, are similarly more common than those the size of pebbles, and so on. When the ice warms and sublimates, the vapor can drag along dust, sand, and pebbles. Each time

2088-470: The "greater dog"; both figures are commonly represented as following the constellation of Orion the hunter. Canis Minor contains only two stars brighter than the fourth magnitude , Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris), with a magnitude of 0.34, and Gomeisa (Beta Canis Minoris), with a magnitude of 2.9. The constellation's dimmer stars were noted by Johann Bayer , who named eight stars including Alpha and Beta, and John Flamsteed , who numbered fourteen. Procyon

2160-554: The "left") to its name Canis . In Greek mythology , Canis Minor was sometimes connected with the Teumessian Fox , a beast turned into stone with its hunter, Laelaps , by Zeus , who placed them in heaven as Canis Major (Laelaps) and Canis Minor (Teumessian Fox). Eratosthenes accompanied the Little Dog with Orion, while Hyginus linked the constellation with Maera , a dog owned by Icarius of Athens . On discovering

2232-641: The 9 hours of the storm, over the entire region of North America east of the Rocky Mountains . American Denison Olmsted (1791–1859) explained the event most accurately. After spending the last weeks of 1833 collecting information, he presented his findings in January 1834 to the American Journal of Science and Arts , published in January–April 1834, and January 1836. He noted the shower

Little Dog - Misplaced Pages Continue

2304-470: The Beta Canis Minorids, are a meteor shower that arise near the fifth-magnitude star 11 Canis Minoris and were discovered in 1964 by Keith Hindley, who investigated their trajectory and proposed a common origin with the comet D/1917 F1 Mellish. However, this conclusion has been refuted subsequently as the number of orbits analysed was low and their trajectories too disparate to confirm

2376-406: The Earth and Tempel-Tuttle and marks where Earth encountered dense dust. This showed that the meteoroids are mostly behind and outside the path of the comet, but paths of the Earth through the cloud of particles resulting in powerful storms were very near paths of nearly no activity. In 1985, E. D. Kondrat'eva and E. A. Reznikov of Kazan State University first correctly identified the years when dust

2448-402: The Earth moving in its orbit around the Sun. See IMO Meteor Shower Calendar 2017 ( International Meteor Organization ) for maps of drifting "fixed points." When the moving radiant is at the highest point, it will reach the observer's sky that night. The Sun will be just clearing the eastern horizon. For this reason, the best viewing time for a meteor shower is generally slightly before dawn —

2520-568: The Greek; Procyon was called ash-Shi'ra ash-Shamiya , the "Syrian Sirius" and Gomeisa was called ash-Shira al-Ghamisa , the Sirius with bleary eyes. Among the Merazig of Tunisia , shepherds note six constellations that mark the passage of the dry, hot season. One of them, called Merzem , includes the stars of Canis Minor and Canis Major and is the herald of two weeks of hot weather. The ancient Egyptians thought of this constellation as Anubis ,

2592-465: The Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli ascertained the relation between meteors and comets in his work "Notes upon the astronomical theory of the falling stars" ( 1867 ). In the 1890s, Irish astronomer George Johnstone Stoney (1826–1911) and British astronomer Arthur Matthew Weld Downing (1850–1917) were the first to attempt to calculate the position of the dust at Earth's orbit. They studied

2664-564: The Northern River Beihe ( Castor and Pollux ), Nánhé was also associated with a gate or sentry. Along with Zeta and 8 Cancri , 6 Canis Minoris and 11 Canis Minoris formed the asterism Shuiwei , which literally means "water level". Combined with additional stars in Gemini , Shuiwei represented an official who managed floodwaters or a marker of the water level. Neighboring Korea recognized four stars in Canis Minor as part of

2736-563: The Solar System. Lying 222 ± 7 light-years away with an apparent magnitude of 4.39, HD 66141 is 6.8 billion years old and has evolved into an orange giant of spectral type K2III with a diameter around 22 times that of the Sun, and weighing 1.1 solar masses. It is 174 times as luminous as the Sun, with an absolute magnitude of −0.15. HD 66141 was mistakenly named 13 Puppis, as its celestial coordinates were recorded incorrectly when catalogued and hence mistakenly thought to be in

2808-412: The Solar System. It is a semiregular variable star that varies between a maximum magnitude of 6.14 and minimum magnitude of 6.42. Periods of 27.7, 143.3 and 208.3 days have been recorded in its pulsations. AZ , AD and BI Canis Minoris are Delta Scuti variables —short period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology . AZ

2880-455: The Sun), others are decelerated (making shorter orbits), resulting in gaps in the dust trail in the next return (like opening a curtain, with grains piling up at the beginning and end of the gap). Also, Jupiter's perturbation can dramatically change sections of the dust trail, especially for a short period comets, when the grains approach the giant planet at their furthest point along the orbit around

2952-578: The Sun, moving most slowly. As a result, the trail has a clumping , a braiding or a tangling of crescents , of each release of material. The third effect is that of radiation pressure which will push less massive particles into orbits further from the Sun ;– while more massive objects (responsible for bolides or fireballs ) will tend to be affected less by radiation pressure. This makes some dust trail encounters rich in bright meteors, others rich in faint meteors. Over time, these effects disperse

Little Dog - Misplaced Pages Continue

3024-623: The absence of meteor storms that season confirmed the calculations, the advance of much better computing tools was needed to arrive at reliable predictions. In 1981, Donald K. Yeomans of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory reviewed the history of meteor showers for the Leonids and the history of the dynamic orbit of Comet Tempel-Tuttle. A graph from it was adapted and re-published in Sky and Telescope . It showed relative positions of

3096-661: The brightest star in Luyten's Star's sky. The fourth-magnitude HD 66141 , which has evolved into an orange giant towards the end of its life cycle , was discovered to have a planet in 2012. There are two faint deep-sky objects within the constellation's borders. The 11 Canis-Minorids are a meteor shower that can be seen in early December. Though strongly associated with the Classical Greek uranographic tradition, Canis Minor originates from ancient Mesopotamia . Procyon and Gomeisa were called MASH.TAB.BA or "twins" in

3168-413: The comet's orbit to form a dense meteoroid stream, which subsequently evolves into Earth's path. Shortly after Whipple predicted that dust particles traveled at low speeds relative to the comet, Milos Plavec was the first to offer the idea of a dust trail , when he calculated how meteoroids, once freed from the comet, would drift mostly in front of or behind the comet after completing one orbit. The effect

3240-613: The constellation names to make them more manageable on celestial charts . Occasionally, Canis Minor is confused with Canis Major and given the name Canis Orionis ("Orion's Dog"). In Chinese astronomy , the stars corresponding to Canis Minor lie in the Vermilion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, Nán Fāng Zhū Què ). Procyon, Gomeisa and Eta Canis Minoris form an asterism known as Nánhé, the Southern River. With its counterpart,

3312-420: The constellation of Puppis ; Bode gave it the name Lambda Canis Minoris, which is now obsolete. The orange giant is orbited by a planet, HD 66141b , which was detected in 2012 by measuring the star's radial velocity . The planet has a mass around 6 times that of Jupiter and a period of 480 days. A red giant of spectral type M4III, BC Canis Minoris lies around 500 light-years (150 parsecs) distant from

3384-432: The day called "Water". Lying directly south of Gemini's bright stars Castor and Pollux , Canis Minor is a small constellation bordered by Monoceros to the south, Gemini to the north, Cancer to the northeast, and Hydra to the east. It does not border Canis Major ; Monoceros is in between the two. Covering 183 square degrees, Canis Minor ranks seventy-first of the 88 constellations in size. It appears prominently in

3456-416: The diameter and 750 times the luminosity of the Sun. Eta Canis Minoris is a giant of spectral class F0III of magnitude 5.24, which has a yellowish hue when viewed through binoculars as well as a faint companion of magnitude 11.1. Located 4 arcseconds from the primary, the companion star is actually around 440 AU from the main star and takes around 5,000 years to orbit it. Near Procyon, three stars share

3528-580: The dust ejected in 1866 by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle before the anticipated Leonid shower return of 1898 and 1899. Meteor storms were expected, but the final calculations showed that most of the dust would be far inside Earth's orbit. The same results were independently arrived at by Adolf Berberich of the Königliches Astronomisches Rechen Institut (Royal Astronomical Computation Institute) in Berlin, Germany. Although

3600-463: The dust trails can evolve in complicated ways. For example, the orbits of some repeating comets, and meteoroids leaving them, are in resonant orbits with Jupiter or one of the other large planets – so many revolutions of one will equal another number of the other. This creates a shower component called a filament. A second effect is a close encounter with a planet. When the meteoroids pass by Earth, some are accelerated (making wider orbits around

3672-589: The evening sky from January to March, Canis Minor is most prominent at 10 p.m. during mid-February. It is then seen earlier in the evening until July, when it is only visible after sunset before setting itself, and rising in the morning sky before dawn. The constellation's three-letter abbreviation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "CMi". Canis Minor contains only two stars brighter than fourth magnitude . At magnitude 0.34, Procyon, or Alpha Canis Minoris,

SECTION 50

#1732787433363

3744-639: The jackal god. Alternative names have been proposed: Johann Bayer in the early 17th century termed the constellation Fovea "The Pit", and Morus " Sycamine Tree". Seventeenth-century German poet and author Philippus Caesius linked it to the dog of Tobias from the Apocrypha . Richard A. Proctor gave the constellation the name Felis "the Cat" in 1870 (contrasting with Canis Major, which he had abbreviated to Canis "the Dog"), explaining that he sought to shorten

3816-563: The latter's death, the dog and Icarius' daughter Erigone took their lives and all three were placed in the sky—Erigone as Virgo and Icarius as Boötes . As a reward for his faithfulness, the dog was placed along the "banks" of the Milky Way, which the ancients believed to be a heavenly river, where he would never suffer from thirst. The medieval Arabic astronomers maintained the depiction of Canis Minor ( al-Kalb al-Asghar in Arabic ) as

3888-429: The meteoroids and create a broader stream. The meteors we see from these streams are part of annual showers , because Earth encounters those streams every year at much the same rate. When the meteoroids collide with other meteoroids in the zodiacal cloud , they lose their stream association and become part of the "sporadic meteors" background. Long since dispersed from any stream or trail, they form isolated meteors, not

3960-466: The meteoroids due to increased distance from the sun should marginally decrease meteor brightness. This is somewhat balanced because the slower descent means that Martian meteors have more time to ablate. On March 7, 2004, the panoramic camera on Mars Exploration Rover Spirit recorded a streak which is now believed to have been caused by a meteor from a Martian meteor shower associated with comet 114P/Wiseman-Skiff . A strong display from this shower

4032-519: The moon maintained by the Marshall Space Flight Center whether from a shower or not. Many planets and moons have impact craters dating back large spans of time. But new craters, perhaps even related to meteor showers are possible. Mars, and thus its moons, is known to have meteor showers. These have not been observed on other planets as yet but may be presumed to exist. For Mars in particular, although these are different from

4104-490: The more massive star every 41 years, is of magnitude 10.7. Procyon A is 1.4 times the Sun's mass , while its smaller companion is 0.6 times as massive as the Sun. The system is 11.4 light-years (3.5 parsecs ) from Earth , the shortest distance to a northern-hemisphere star of the first magnitude. Gomeisa , or Beta Canis Minoris, with a magnitude of 2.89, is the second-brightest star in Canis Minor. Lying 160 ± 10 light-years (49.1 ± 3.1 parsecs) from

4176-448: The name Delta Canis Minoris . Delta is a yellow-white F-type giant of magnitude 5.25 located around 790 light-years (240 parsecs) from Earth. About 360 times as luminous and 3.75 times as massive as the Sun, it is expanding and cooling as it ages, having spent much of its life as a main sequence star of spectrum B6V. Also known as 8 Canis Minoris, Delta is an F-type main-sequence star of spectral type F2V and magnitude 5.59 which

4248-531: The next 50 years. Jérémie Vaubaillon continues to update predictions based on observations each year for the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides (IMCCE). Because meteor shower particles are all traveling in parallel paths and at the same velocity, they will appear to an observer below to radiate away from a single point in the sky. This radiant point is caused by the effect of perspective , similar to parallel railroad tracks converging at

4320-492: The normal water vapor drag of active comets, but the product of infrequent disintegrations, when large chunks break off a mostly dormant comet. Examples are the Quadrantids and Geminids , which originated from a breakup of asteroid-looking objects, (196256) 2003 EH 1 and 3200 Phaethon , respectively, about 500 and 1000 years ago. The fragments tend to fall apart quickly into dust, sand, and pebbles and spread out along

4392-401: The ones seen on Earth because of the different orbits of Mars and Earth relative to the orbits of comets. The Martian atmosphere has less than one percent of the density of Earth's at ground level, at their upper edges, where meteoroids strike; the two are more similar. Because of the similar air pressure at altitudes for meteors, the effects are much the same. Only the relatively slower motion of

SECTION 60

#1732787433363

4464-436: The planets determines where the dust trail would pass by Earth orbit, much like a gardener directing a hose to water a distant plant. Most years, those trails would miss the Earth altogether, but in some years, the Earth is showered by meteors. This effect was first demonstrated from observations of the 1995 alpha Monocerotids , and from earlier not widely known identifications of past Earth storms. Over more extended periods,

4536-417: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Little Dog . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Little_Dog&oldid=1123456359 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description

4608-416: The size of Jupiter and 20 light-years (6.1 parsecs) from Earth. It is a flare star , emitting unpredictable outbursts of energy for mere minutes, which might be much more powerful analogues of solar flares . Luyten's Star (GJ 273) is a red dwarf star of spectral type M3.5V and close neighbour of the Solar System. Its visual magnitude of 9.9 renders it too faint to be seen with the naked eye, even though it

4680-481: The southern sky during the Northern Hemisphere 's winter. The constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 14 sides. In the equatorial coordinate system , the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 07 06.4 and 08 11.4 , while the declination coordinates are between 13.22° and −0.36°. Most visible in

4752-692: The star Delta Aquarii (declension "-i") are called the Delta Aquariids . The International Astronomical Union's Task Group on Meteor Shower Nomenclature and the IAU's Meteor Data Center keep track of meteor shower nomenclature and which showers are established. A meteor shower results from an interaction between a planet, such as Earth, and streams of debris from a comet . Comets can produce debris by water vapor drag, as demonstrated by Fred Whipple in 1951, and by breakup. Whipple envisioned comets as "dirty snowballs," made up of rock embedded in ice, orbiting

4824-658: Was also given the name DAR.LUGAL , its position defined as "the star which stands behind it [Orion]", in the MUL.APIN ; the constellation represents a rooster . This name may have also referred to the constellation Lepus . DAR.LUGAL was also denoted DAR.MUŠEN and DAR.LUGAL.MUŠEN in Babylonia. Canis Minor was then called tarlugallu in Akkadian astronomy . Canis Minor was one of the original 48 constellations formulated by Ptolemy in his second-century Almagest , in which it

4896-569: Was defined as a specific pattern ( asterism ) of stars; Ptolemy identified only two stars and hence no depiction was possible. The Ancient Greeks called the constellation προκυων/ Procyon , "coming before the dog", transliterated into Latin as Antecanis , Praecanis , or variations thereof, by Cicero and others. Roman writers also appended the descriptors parvus , minor or minusculus ("small" or "lesser", for its faintness), septentrionalis ("northerly", for its position in relation to Canis Major), primus (rising "first") or sinister (rising to

4968-548: Was either a name for the modern figure of Canis Minor or an alternative name for Procyon. Other names included Vena (after a goddess ), on Mangaia and Puanga-hori (false Puanga , the name for Rigel ), in New Zealand . In the Society Islands , Procyon was called Ana-tahua-vahine-o-toa-te-manava , literally "Aster the priestess of brave heart", figuratively the "pillar for elocution". The Wardaman people of

5040-606: Was expected on December 20, 2007. Other showers speculated about are a "Lambda Geminid" shower associated with the Eta Aquariids of Earth ( i.e. , both associated with Comet 1P/Halley ), a "Beta Canis Major" shower associated with Comet 13P/Olbers , and "Draconids" from 5335 Damocles . Isolated massive impacts have been observed at Jupiter: The 1994 Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 which formed a brief trail as well, and successive events since then (see List of Jupiter events .) Meteors or meteor showers have been discussed for most of

5112-598: Was of short duration and was not seen in Europe , and that the meteors radiated from a point in the constellation of Leo . He speculated the meteors had originated from a cloud of particles in space. Work continued, yet coming to understand the annual nature of showers though the occurrences of storms perplexed researchers. The actual nature of meteors was still debated during the 19th century. Meteors were conceived as an atmospheric phenomenon by many scientists ( Alexander von Humboldt , Adolphe Quetelet , Julius Schmidt ) until

5184-463: Was released which was responsible for several past Leonid meteor storms. In 1995, Peter Jenniskens predicted the 1995 Alpha Monocerotids outburst from dust trails. In anticipation of the 1999 Leonid storm, Robert H. McNaught , David Asher , and Finland's Esko Lyytinen were the first to apply this method in the West. In 2006 Jenniskens published predictions for future dust trail encounters covering

#362637