Galileo and the Orion Nebula
Why didn’t Galileo, who made so many telescopic discoveries, record the Great Nebula in Orion? We might understand how he could overlook a faint outer planet like Neptune, but how could he have missed a fuzzy patch visible to the naked eye?
As always, reality is more complex than it seems at first glance. Flandrau Planetarium in Tucson, Arizona, has displayed an exact replica of one of Galileo’s telescopes for many years. One look through this primitive instrument (mounted so visitors can view with it), and you’ll realize just how incredible his discoveries were.
Galileo made his first telescopes while living in Venice. The “figure” of the glass lenses was done by trial and error, and the glass may have been full of air bubbles. Perhaps Galileo thought the fuzzy nature of the region in Orion’s Sword had more to do with his instrument than with the true nature of the object.
Mythic surroundings
Greek mythology provides many stories about Orion the Hunter. One myth says that the gods placed Orion in the sky as a punishment for his arrogance. Another declares Orion was in love with the beautiful goddess Diana. Diana’s brother, Apollo, was enraged by this relationship and tricked Diana into killing Orion with one of her arrows.
Another story claims Orion threatened to kill all animal life on Earth. To prevent this, the Earth goddess, Gaia, sent a scorpion that stung Orion on the heel, killing him. Regretting her actions, Gaia placed Orion opposite Scorpius the Scorpion in the sky so Orion could never be harmed again. Any star chart shows this arrangement.
The ancient Egyptians saw Orion as the god Osiris, the husband of Isis. Seth killed his brother Osiris in an ancient rivalry. To make certain the job was complete, Seth chopped Osiris into 14 pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt.
Isis recovered all but one part and placed Osiris in the sky (as the constellation Orion), where he could be seen by all. Osiris became a pre-Christian symbol of death and resurrection because Orion sets in the springtime when crops are being planted and reappears when the crops have been harvested.
The Greeks told similar stories emphasizing Orion’s timekeeping nature. The poet Aratus wrote a book, Phaenomena, around 200 b.c. The long poem is really a calendar guide that gives directions about nature and the passage of the year.
Even T.H. White captures Orion’s calendric use in his book The Sword in the Stone when he has the young Wart — the future King Arthur — looking through a castle window at Orion, hoping spring will arrive soon. Perhaps Wart looked at the giant’s gleaming sword and thought of Excalibur.
As the civilizations of Greece and then Rome eventually collapsed, the growing power of Islam flowed from the deserts to fill the void. Muslim scholars collected Greek manuscripts and translated them into Arabic. This preserved a great part of ancient literature and science.
To these scholars, Orion became Al Jabbar, the mighty giant. From a contemporary view, this gives a good idea as to what heights basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar must have aspired.