Star names recognised
THE Australian Aboriginal names of four stars have been officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union — and they include the fifth star in the Southern Cross.
The IAU, the world body of professional astronomers, has been approving official star names since 2016 and they now have well over 300 on their list.
There are many names that have been in common use for a very long time — indeed, many of the names we use today are Arabic ones.
So what the IAU has been doing is to formalise the names, even very commonly used names such as Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
There are many other ways of “naming” the stars, with the most well-known format being a Greek letter followed by the genitive form of the name of the constellation.
It is a system used by Johannes Bayer about 400 years ago; in general, the brightest star in a constellation is designated alpha, followed by beta, gamma, and so on. Many stars also have numbers called Flamsteed numbers, after a catalogue produced by 18th century English Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed.
Still more systems include the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) Catalogue, which numbers over a quarter of a million stars, and the Henry Draper Catalogue, which numbers about 360,000 stars. Both of these, and many others, include stars that are not visible to the unaided eye.
However, the names now being approved are what we call the proper names, and they are for stars that can be seen without optical aid.
In its most recent set of approved names, the IAU has included many traditional star names from around the world, and four of these are from Australia. Three of them are names given by the Wardaman people of the Northern Territory, and they relate to initiation ceremonies.
Of these stars, the most well-known one to us is the one we designate as Epsilon Crucis, which is the fifth and least bright star of the Southern Cross depicted on the Australian flag.
It has been called Ginan, and it represents a dilly bag filled with songs of knowledge, including a song about the initiation ceremony. The dilly bag being represented is red; it fits with the colour of the star, which has an orange tint.
Another star name from the Wardaman people is Larawag, which is a star that we also call Epsilon Scorpii, in the constellation of The Scorpion. Larawag is a watcher of initiation ceremonies, and ensures that nobody was present who should not have been there.
The third star name from the Wardaman is Wurren. It is the star Zeta Phoenicis, in the constellation of The Phoenix. Wurren is said to be a froglady; Wurren and the echidna get the people being initiated to carry water from a waterfall, used to cool the people present at the ceremony.
The fourth star name recently approved by the IAU comes from the Boorong people of the northwestern part of Victoria. It is Unurgunite, which is the star Sigma Canis Majoris in the constellation of Canis Major, the Great Dog.
This constellation is currently seen high in our Tasmanian evening sky, and is dominated by Sirius.
The story is that Unurgunite had two wives, but the moon fell in love with one of them. After the inevitable fight, the moon ended up with battle injuries, which we see today as the famous dark markings on the moon.
It is exciting that Aboriginal star names and star stories are being increasingly recognised.
The Aboriginal people of Tasmania, too, passed down many fascinating stories, several of which are presented in the exhibition The First Tasmanians at the Queen Victoria Art Gallery in Launceston. Martin George is manager of the Launceston Planetarium (QVMAG).