dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (01/06/85)
The full moon is near the constellation Gemini tonight. More -- right after this. January 6 The Moon and the Twins Sunday night, the moon is full -- and visible in the sky all night long near the brightest stars in the constellation Gemini, the Twins. Old star maps show Gemini as two robust boys, who stand with their arms around each other and their heads touching. Shining from the outer eye of each twin is a bright star -- and these stars have been named for the twin boys, Castor and Pollux. Despite the togetherness of the two legendary brothers, the stars Castor and Pollux aren't connected in space. Instead, they're fairly far apart, with each moving in a different direction. But neither star is very far from Earth, at least not as stellar distances go. Castor is 47 light-years away, or about three million times farther from us than the sun. Pollux -- the brighter star of the two -- is only 33 light-years away. Pollux is brighter -- but Castor is special for another reason. Castor is actually a triple star system, and each of those three components is a double star. That makes six stars in all in the single point of light that we call Castor. From antiquity, the stars Castor and Pollux have been said to bring good luck to sailors. The figureheads of wooden sailing ships often used to represent them. They're also said to bring fair weather in June, when they're seen in the evening, low in the west. To see these two benign stars Sunday evening though, you would want to look toward the east -- at the two brightest stars near the moon. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1984, 1985 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin