"The Two 'Mairzy Doats and Dozey Doats' and 'Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius' Stars of the Cosmos"

Scheduled air date: 2002 Jul 08-14

Locate the two brightest stars in Libra, Zubeneschamali and Zubenelgenubi.   These two star names are Arabic for "The Northern Claw" and "The Southern Claw," respectively, and date back to when they were considered part of the constellation Scorpius—before the Romans used them in their constellation Libra, the Scales.

Zubenelgenubi is about 65 light-years from us and 25 times brighter than our own Sun, while Zubeneschamali is about 140 light-years from us and over 150 times as bright as the Sun!
(Shown about 11:00 PM during mid-July for mid-Northern latitudes.)

If you wish to view illustrations for other episodes, please see our Star Gazer Illustrated directory.

Illustrations on this page were created using TheSky Astronomy Software, an advanced desktop planetarium program designed for Windows. Copyright © 1999-2006 by Software Bisque, Inc.