Dragón
Dragon (Draconis)
Draco, the Dragon, is a long, winding constellation that coils around the north celestial pole between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Though it contains no first-magnitude stars, its historical importance is significant - the star Thuban was the North Star when the Egyptian pyramids were built around 2700 BCE, and due to precession, will be again in about 21,000 years.
📜 Mitología
Draco represents Ladon, the hundred-headed dragon that guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. These apples had been a wedding gift from Gaia to Hera. As his eleventh labor, Hercules was tasked with stealing these apples. He killed Ladon to complete his quest, and Hera, grieving for her faithful guardian, placed the dragon among the stars. In another version, Draco represents the dragon killed by Cadmus before founding the city of Thebes, or the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece.
💡 Datos curiosos
- ✦Around 2700 BCE, Thuban was the North Star, and the descending passages of Egyptian pyramids were aligned to point at it
- ✦The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) in Draco is one of the most complex planetary nebulae known
- ✦The Draconid meteor shower occurs each October, occasionally producing spectacular storms