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How to see Antares
Bright reddish Antares – also known as Alpha Scorpii – is easy to spot on a summer night. It is the brightest star – and distinctly reddish in color – in the fishhook-shaped pattern of stars known as the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion.
If you look southward in early evening from late spring to early fall, you’re likely to notice this fishhook pattern, with ruby Antares as its heart. If you think you’ve found Antares, aim binoculars in its direction. You should notice its reddish color. And you should see a little star cluster – known as M4 – just to the right of this star. (See image above)
Antares is the 16th brightest star in the sky, and it is located in the southern half of Earth’s sky. So your chance of seeing this star on any given night increases as you go farther southward on Earth’s globe. If you traveled to the southern hemisphere – from about 67 degrees south latitude – you’d find that Antares is circumpolar, meaning that it never sets and is visible every night of the year from Earth’s southernmost regions.
We in the northern hemisphere know Antares better than several other southern stars that are brighter. That’s because Antares is visible from throughout most of the northern hemisphere, short of the Arctic. Well, not quite the Arctic, but anywhere south of 63 degrees north latitude can – at one time or another – see Antares. (Helsinki yes, Fairbanks, no)
Antares throughout the year. The midnight culmination of Antares is on or near June 1. That is when Antares is highest in the sky at midnight (midway between sunset and sunrise). It is highest in the sky at about dawn in early March and at about sunset in early September.
Science
Antares is truly an enormous star, with a radius in excess of 3 Astronomical Units (AU). One AU is the Earth’s average distance from the sun. If by some bit of magic Antares was suddenly substituted for our sun, the surface of the star would extend well past the orbit of Mars!
Image at left: Wikimedia Commons
Antares is classified as an M1 supergiant star. The “M1″ designation says that Antares is reddish in color and “cooler” than many other stars. Its surface temperature of 3500 kelvins (about 5800 degrees F.) is in contrast to about 10,000 degrees F. for our sun. Even though Antares’ surface temperature is relatively low, Antares’ tremendous surface area – the surface from which light can escape – makes this star very bright. In fact, Antares approaches 11,000 times the brilliance of our puny sun, a G2 star – but that is just in visible light. When all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation is considered, Antares pumps out more than 60,000 times the energy of our sun!
Shaula and Lesath: Scorpion’s Stinger stars
Red Antares is similar to but somewhat larger than another famous red star, Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. Yet Betelguese appears slightly brighter than Antares in our sky. Hipparcos satellite data places Antares at about 604 light-years away, in contrast to Betelgeuse’s distance of 428 light-years, explaining why the larger star appears fainter from Earth.
Like all M-type giants and supergiants, Antares is close to the end of its lifetime. Someday soon (astronomically speaking), it will effectively run out of fuel and collapse. The resulting infall of its enormous mass – some 15-18 times the mass of our sun – will cause an immense supernova explosion, ultimately leaving a tiny neutron star or possibly a black hole. This explosion, which could be tomorrow or millions of years from now, will be spectacular as seen from Earth, but we are far enough away that there likely is no danger to our planet.
History and Myth
Antares is Greek for “Opposing Mars” or “Rivaling Mars.” The first part, “Ant” is from the same root as “anti”, and Greek name of Mars is “Ares.” So Antares is the “Anti-Mars” as a rival or as if to deceive — an imposter! Antares is the same general color as Mars, but for a few months every couple of years the planet is much brighter than the star. Most of the time, though, Mars is near the same brightness or fainter than Antares. Every couple of years Mars passes near Antares, which was perhaps seen as taunting the star, as Mars moves rapidly through the heavens and Antares, like all stars, seems fixed to the starry firmament. Both the Arabic and Latin names for the star mean “heart of the Scorpion,” which it the way it is situated in most constellation drawings.
As is typical, more mythology attends the full constellation of Scorpius than the star Antares. Perhaps the most well known story of Scorpius is that the Earth goddess, Gaia, sent him to sting arrogant Orion, who had claimed his intent to kill all animals on the planet. Scorpius killed Orion, and both were placed in the sky, although in opposite sides of the heavens, positioned as if to show the Scorpion chasing the Mighty Hunter.
Interestingly, Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion is similar in appearance to Antares, although brighter. Betelgeuse is not as associated with Mars as is Antares. Although the planet passes in the vicinity of Betelgeuse every couple of years, it never gets as close as it does to Antares.
In Polynesia, Scorpius is often seen as a fishhook, with some stories describing it as the magic fishhook used by the demigod Maui to pull up land from the ocean floor that became the Hawaiian islands. According to the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy website, the Hawaiian name for Antares, Lehua-kona, seems to have little to do with the constellation. It means “southern lehua blossom.”
Antares’ position is RA:16h 29m 24s, dec: -26° 25′ 55″.
there is no myth story behind the greek/roman myth of antares. yet you write that there is even though you only talk about the star antares and the planet mars. good job you lied to me!!!
you need to read twice before you JUDGE!WILL…READ WILL READ
Your comment is so ridiculous. Find another place to vent your anger.
S. Hagar in the article “Cherokee Star-Lore” in Festschrift Boas (1906) as well as H.B. Alexander in North American mythology report that the Pawnee and Cherokee say that the souls of the dead are received at the end of their celestial pathway, the Milky Way, by the Spirit star, and there they make their camp for a while. Hagar takes the Spirit Star to be Antares. The star marks the southern “end” of the galaxy, the southern crossroads with the ecliptic.
To the Polynesians Antares is the Pillar of Entrance of the Pillars of Rumia.
In the mythology of India, Antares is called “the eldest” or “who slays the eldest.”
–from Hamlet’s Mill by G. de Santillana and H. von Dechend (1969).
Thank you, Will, for your comment, but perhaps you would like to read the article again. I did not say that there is no “myth story” about Antares, and the information on the name meaning “Rivaling Mars” is hardly a myth. I did not lie to you.
So you think Lehua-kona means ‘southern lehua blossom?’ That’s so not true. In fact the flower is named after Antares because both are red. Doh.
Tane, thank you for your correction. Perhaps your definition is better, but not being an expert in the Hawiian language, I was relying on a University of Hawaii website for the information, as well as that of the Bishop Museum. It is also defined as such in many other references. Lehua may mean red or dignifying a red flower, but I think the references to it being a form or “Rehua” is likely the proper link.
FYI, the waxing gibbous moon passes near Antares on the evenings of July 20 and 21.
Billy,
No, not tonight (July 13, 2010), although you can catch the moon as a very thin crescent just as it gets dark, low in the western sky. The moon appears to move among the stars every night (but of course it is vastly closer to us than the stars). It is not near Mars or Antares tonight, but it will pass fairly near Mars on this Thursday evening (7/15), and fairly close to Antares next Wednesday (7/21). Although Mars and Antares look a bit similar, there are 3 main distinctions. First, Mars moves through the constellations (more slowly than the Moon, but noticeably over a few weeks), whereas Antares doesn’t; second, Mars gets brighter and dimmer over the months, due mostly to its varying distance from the Earth; and third, Antares will sometimes twinkle or flicker (“scintillate”), whereas Mars doesn’t, or at least not much. Right now, in July 2010, Antares is slightly brighter than Mars, but sometimes it is the other way around.
Hello,
Thanks for your information on Antares. i am originially from Antares and would love to learn more about this Star. Can you help? Are there any groups of people like me?
Toya
Toya, I’m sure that there are many people like you out there from Antares, but I am afraid that I find it difficult to recognize people from other star systems. Why I wouldn’t even be able to recognize Plutonians if it were not for their green hair.
I like this constellation (Scorpius) because it truly almost looks like its name, ONLY if you’re in a heavily polluted sky like mine, since in a clear sky the shape of the scorpion would be totally lost with so many background faint stars and deep sky objects. Most other constellations don’t look like their names, except a few: Triangulum, Southern Cross, Cygnus, and a few asterisms (big and little dippers, teapot, summer triangle, northern cross, Orion belt). Other than those, are there any constellations that truly look like their name, without forcing one one make a big effort to try and see what the ancient people who named them saw, and learn outdated mythology? For example, Cassiopea, Perseus, Andromeda, Pegasus, Canis Major, Ursa Major and Minor, Lepus, Cetus, Pisces, Aquarius, Saggitarius, Virgo, Gemini, Carina, Vela, Puppis and lots of others IMO their names make no sense, even someone with a big imagination couldn’t look at the sky, connect the dots and see what those people saw… Even when one sees the “figures” of the constellations drawn exactly as they created them, IT STILL makes no sense at all! To me Cassipoea is simply “Northern W” or “Sorthern M”, Pegasus is the “Big Square With Legs”, Corvus is “The Kite” and so on…
i can kinda see vela and puppis being what they’re supposed 2b. i can definitely see ursa major (when it’s dark enough 2c the front part and legs anyway) and i can imagine the gemini twins pretty easily as well. 4 me Orion and taurus are easy also. Cepheus, aquila and corona borealis too. hercules, meh. not as much. and a lot of the others are way out there. but personally speaking, i find it interesting 2 learn about the “outdated” mytholoogy, and even that from other cultures that we more rarely hear about.
{;^)
I meant Cassiopea to me is “Northern W” or “Northern M”, because it looks like a W or an M, and it’s located in the northern sky!
Bibi, other than basic geometric shapes, I’m not sure you can say that any look much like what they are supposed to represent. Maybe you can get a scorpion out of Scorpius or a lion out of Leo, but that is largely due to cultural bias. We are familiar with scorpions, but frankly to me I think it works better as a fishhook. To oceanic people who rely on fishing, and who may never have seen a scorpion or at least are not familiar with them — such as the Polynesians — a fish hook would be more likely. Overall, I think that the shape recognition is mostly in the eye of the beholder.
[...] the red supergiant star Antares rises in the southeast around midnight. And at about the same time that Antares rises, the red [...]
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