Hércules
Hercules (Herculis)
Hercules is the fifth-largest constellation in the sky, though it contains no stars brighter than third magnitude. Despite its faintness, it's an important constellation astronomically, containing M13 (the Great Hercules Cluster), one of the brightest globular clusters visible from the Northern Hemisphere, and M92, another fine globular cluster. The constellation represents the greatest hero of Greek mythology.
📜 Mitología
Hercules (Heracles in Greek) was the son of Zeus and the mortal woman Alcmene. Hera, Zeus's jealous wife, sent snakes to kill him as an infant, but the baby strangled them with his bare hands. Later, Hera drove Hercules mad, causing him to kill his own family. To atone, he was assigned twelve seemingly impossible labors, including slaying the Nemean Lion (Leo), killing the many-headed Hydra, capturing the Cretan Bull (Taurus), and obtaining the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides (guarded by Draco). After completing these labors and his death on a funeral pyre, Hercules was granted immortality and a place among the gods.
💡 Datos curiosos
- ✦The Great Hercules Cluster (M13) contains about 300,000 stars and is visible to the naked eye under dark skies
- ✦The solar apex - the direction in which our solar system is moving through space - lies in Hercules
- ✦In 1974, the Arecibo message, a radio signal containing information about humanity, was beamed toward M13