Does anyone know why it's called that?
2007-10-02 05:59:31 · 4 answers · asked by Pootie 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Right, so where did that come from. Why a dog; why not a sheep? Does it have some meaning? Something about it that people associated with dogs?
2007-10-02 06:12:48 · update #1
The Greeks imagined tat the bright star at the heel of Orion the hunter was his dog, or the eye of the dog.
2007-10-02 06:17:09 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
The dog star's real name is Sirius. It is actually a binary Star system which means there are actually two stars that orbit one another. The bigger of the two stars(Sirius A.) is about 2.5 times the mass of the sun. The secondary star(Sirius B) in the binary is a little bit smaller than the sun. The stars at about 8.6 light years a relativly close to Earth. That means light that left the dog star(Sirius A) has taken 8.6 years of traveling to reach the Earth. So, when you look at (Sirius A) now, you are actually looking back 8.6 year into the past. It is part of the "Canis Majoris" constallation which means "Big Dog" and the dog star(Sirius) would be the eye of the dog in that constallation. This is probably more than you wanted to know but, I do hope this helps. Take care and keep looking up.
2007-10-02 07:21:56 · answer #2 · answered by MightyRighty 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes, because it's in the constellation Canis Major, the Big Dog. Brightest star in that constellation. Brightest star in the sky, except our Sun.
2007-10-02 06:05:32 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The dog star is named Sirius. Now go look up "dog days" for more information.
2007-10-02 06:07:47 · answer #4 · answered by oldsalt 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋