Serpens is one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. It is split into two non-contiguous parts, Serpens Caput and SerPens Cauda. Part of the Milky Way’s galactic plane passes through Serpen Caput. The constellation is based on the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy.
About Serpens in brief
Serpens is one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union. It is split into two non-contiguous parts, Serpens Caput and SerPens Cauda. Between these two halves lies the constellation of Ophiuchus, the \”Serpent-Bearer\”. In figurative representations, the body of the serpent is represented as passing between Mu Serpentis and Nu Serpentis. The brightest star is the red giant star Alpha Serpentis, or Unukalhai, with an apparent magnitude of 2. 63. Part of the Milky Way’s galactic plane passes through Serpen Caput, which is rich in galactic deep-sky objects, such as the Eagle Nebula and its associated star cluster Messier 16. In Chinese astronomy, most of the stars of SerpENS represented part of a wall surrounding a marketplace, known as Tianshi. Two stars in the tail represent part of Shilou, the tower with a market office, and Liesi, jewel shops. There were two constellation in Babylonian astronomy known as Muššušu and Bašmušu, which corresponds to the horned serpent and roughly to the Hydra in Greek mythology. The constellation is based on the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, who listed it as one of 48 constellationals in his book The Astronomy of the Earth and the Sun, published in 16th century England. The most famous star in the constellation is the Red Square Nebula, which measures 70 light-years by 50 light- years and contains the Pillars of Creation, three dust clouds that became famous for the image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
It also contains a few Chinese constellated. objects, including Seyfert’s Sextet and Arp 220, the prototypical ultraluminous infrared galaxy; and Hoag’s Object, the most famous of the very rare class of galaxies known as ring galaxies. In some ancient atlases, the constellatives were depicted as two separate constellsations, although more often they were shown as a single constellation. In the 1920s, Eugène Delporte elected to depict the two separately, but this posed the problem of how to disentangle the two constellation, with Deporte deciding to split the two areas into two areas—the head and the tail—separated by the continuous Ophiuchsus. The two areas became known as Serpense Caput and Serpene Caud a, caput being the Latin word for head and cauda the Latinword for tail. In ancient Greek mythology, the constellation represents a snake held by the healer Asclepius. After killing a snake, the animal was subsequently resurrected after a second snake placed a revival herb on it before its death. As snakes shed their skin every year, they were known as the symbol of rebirth in ancient Greek society, and legend says As Clepius would revive dead humans using the same technique he witnessed.
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This page is based on the article Serpens published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 06, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
