Transcript[]
Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby.
Tim sits in an armchair, reading from a newspaper. From behind the chair, Moby looks over his shoulder.
TIM: Scorpio: You will be especially thoughtful today, and your curiosity will be strong. Also, someone close to you is planning to squirt you with a hose.
TIM: Cancer: Today, like all days, is a good time to act destructively without any regard to the consequences. If there's a hose around, you know what to do.
Beep!
Tim reads from a typed letter.
TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, What are constellations? From Corwin.
Tim towels off his face and addresses the camera.
TIM: That's a good question, Corwin, and there are actually two answers. To you or me, a constellation is a pattern of bright, highly visible stars, like Orion. But to astronomers, constellations are specific regions of the sky around those patterns. Many stars in space are shown. Some are much larger and brighter than the others. Lines connect several stars to create an irregular shape. The camera zooms out to show more stars connected into irregular shapes. Lines divide the space around these shapes into various polygons. All this appears in the sky over a telescope in an observatory on Earth.
TIM: Astronomers have divided the celestial sphere into 88 of these constellations. The celestial sphere is how we see the universe from our position on Earth. It's basically an imaginary ball with us at the center and stars sprinkled all over it. Each one of the sphere's 88 constellations contains thousands—even millions—of visible stars and galaxies. Earth is shown in the center of a sphere made up of vertical and horizontal lines. The camera zooms in to show various sections of the sphere labeled "Andromeda", "Perseus", and "Cassiopeia", among many others.
MOBY: Beep?
TIM: Yeah, it's sort of like the way America is divided into 50 states. It makes it easier to describe where something’s located. Like, if an astronomer says she found something new in Orion, other astronomers will know which area of the sky to check! An unlabeled political map of the United States is shown.
MOBY: Beep?
TIM: Right, in ancient times, constellations represented some kind of picture. For example, Pisces was supposed to look like two fish tied together by the tail, while Ursa Major was a large bear.
A man is shown looking at the starry night sky. The camera zooms in on a series of stars connected by lines in the shape of a V with a loop at the upper-right corner. Two fish are superimposed over this image, with their tails pointing toward the bottom of the V. Next, a constellation resembling a four-legged animal is shown, and a bear is superimposed over it.
TIM: Usually, the pictures were associated with myths. The Ancient Greeks believed that Orion was a mighty hunter who the god Zeus placed in the sky after his death.
A drawing of the head and upper torso of a muscular man is shown over several connected stars.
TIM: The constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor are his dogs, and Scorpius is the scorpion that killed him.
The camera zooms out to show drawings of two dogs over more connected stars next to Orion. Next, the camera zooms out even more to show a drawing of a scorpion over other connected stars.
TIM: Most of the constellations we know originally came from ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East. But ancient cultures all over the world—from China to Mexico—had different systems based on their own mythologies.
A bearded man wearing a skullcap and carrying a cross is shown looking at stars in the sky. Next, a man in elaborate Mesoamerican dress is shown looking at the stars in the sky.
MOBY: Beep?
TIM: The stars in all constellations are part of the Milky Way galaxy, same as us! But they're not necessarily that close to one another. In fact, a constellation's stars are sometimes thousands of light years apart! The pattern depends on our perspective looking outward from Earth.
A swirl of light and stars in space is shown. An arrow points to a spot near the edge of the swirl labeled "You are here". Next, the constellation Orion is shown, and as the perspective shifts upward, the stars appear to move apart to form a different shape.
TIM: And if you lived in another solar system, the sky would look completely different! In fact, in the earth's Southern Hemisphere, the sky is different. You can see some constellations that aren't visible in the Northern Hemisphere, and other constellations appear upside-down!
A constellation is shown over the Eiffel Tower and again, inverted, over the Sydney Opera House.
MOBY: Beep!
TIM: True, the earth's rotation keeps constellations on the move.
Earth is shown rotating on the left. On the right, a man is shown looking up at constellations moving across the night sky.
TIM: They rise in the east and set in the west every night, the same way the sun rises and sets each day. On top of that, our view of the universe slowly changes as the earth revolves around the sun.
Earth is shown revolving around the sun on the left. On the right, constellations are shown sinking out of view below the horizon.
TIM: For example, the constellation Cygnus can only be seen from May to January, while Orion is visible from November to February.
On the left, Moby is shown looking over the mountains at night at the X-shaped constellation Cygnus. On the right, he is wearing a winter coat and looking over snow-capped mountains at Orion in the sky.
TIM: The exceptions are circumpolar constellations. They're located above the earth's poles, so they don't rise or set each night, and they're visible all year round. Ursa Minor, or the little bear, is one of these. It contains Polaris, known as the North Star. Since ancient times, sailors, explorers, and plain old hikers have used it to figure out which way is north.
A constellation that looks like a spatula is shown. The star at the tip of its handle is labeled "North Star". This tip is then placed over the North Pole, and the constellation rotates around this point.
MOBY: Beep?
TIM: I was just getting to that. Twelve of the best-known constellations are on the same plane as the earth's orbit around the sun. These Zodiac constellations are found in the ecliptic, the narrow band of sky that the sun travels across each day. In other words, the sun appears to pass through them, though you can’t see that, because it happens in the daytime.
A wide circle is shown around Earth and the sun. The 12 zodiac constellations rotate around this circle as Earth rotates around the sun. The constellations are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. A perspective from Earth shows three of these constellations in the night sky. Then, the sky brightens, and the sun moves through the space where the constellations previously were. As the sun sinks below the horizon, the sky darkens and the constellations reappear.
TIM: At night, you'll see whichever Zodiac constellations are opposite the daytime ones.
A view from above shows Earth circling the sun. The camera zooms in on the constellations in the portion of space that surrounds the dark side of Earth. The camera then moves to the constellations in the portion of space opposite the previously shown night side.
TIM: Ancient astronomers used the Zodiac as a calendar and also as a kind of star map—just like astronomers today!
Moby is shown reading a horoscope magazine.
MOBY: Beep?
TIM: Nope, none of that astrology or horoscope stuff is true. The position of the earth when you were born has nothing to do with your personality, or your future, or anything, really.
MOBY: Beep!
TIM: What do you mean that's so like a Virgo? That's not even my sign.