O’Donnell 1

Michael W. O’Donnell

Professor Harrison

Physics 1040

16 April 2018

Leo The Constellation That is a Lion

Ever since I was first old enough to understand that I was born in the month of August

and that my zodiac sign was Leo, I have been fascinated with the mythology behind the

constellation the ancient Greeks dubbed Leo. The Greeks spoke of a lion that’s hide was so thick

that it could not be penetrated by any sword. Blanche Roesser in her book, ​The story of Leo the

Lion​ brings to life the fable of the Nemean Lion, in this story Eurystheus orders Heracles to

bring him the skin of the mythical beast (Roesser). After hearing stories of this mythical beast

that I had a connection with, I became transfixed on becoming as tough as the hide of this lion

called Leo. later on in life as an adult, I have found myself metamorphosing this toughness into a

mindset for life. Looking up to the stars and thinking about Leo and its mythology has got me

through some rough patches in my life. It is an interesting connection that humans have with the

stars in the sky.

Leo the Lion is one of earliest recognized constellation. In an article for ​Space.com

contributor, Kim Ann Zimmerman writes about hunting for the Lion we knows has the

constellation we call Leo. The Mesopotamians are known to have documented the constellation.

The Persians called it Ser or Shir; the Turks, Artan; the Syrians, Aryo; and the Indians named the

constellation, Simha (Zimmermann). These names for the constellation are all translated as lion.
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Hunting for Leo the Lion in the nights sky is fairly easy. Leo is quite recognizable,

because the constellation dose resemble its namesake. ‘The pointer stars of the Big Dipper point

to Leo” (Zimmermann). Zimmerman says “March dose come in with a lion”. Leo becomes

visible in the Northern hemisphere around the spring equinox and can be seen through the month

of May. Leo is nestled between Cancer to the west and Virgo to the east (Zimmermann).

This sky chart shows where the constellation Leo, the Lion and its trademark sickle appear in the eastern sky as viewed from the

Northern Hemisphere during spring. This chart is where the constellation appears at 8 p.m. EDT as viewed from the U.S. East

Coast.

Credit: Starry Night Software ( space.com)

Leo can be find by looking for the head of the lion, or the sickle, starting at the Leo’s

brightest star Regulus ( Alpha Leonis) star. Regulus , Al Jabbah and Algieba, together with the

fainter stars Adhafera, as well as Ras Elased Borealis and ras Elased Australis make up the

sickle (Zimmermann).
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The brightest star in the curve of the sickle is Al Geiba, which means “ the lion’s mane”

(Zimmermann). In January 2001, a large object eight eight times the size of jupiter was found

orbiting Al Geiba. A triangle of stars that form the lion’s haunches. The brightest star of the three

is Denebola, in translation, “the tale of the lion” (Zimmermann). There are a number of luminous

galaxies within the constellation Leo, including the Leo triplets of M66, M65 and NGC 3628.

The Leo Ring, a cloud of hydrogen and helium gas, which orbits two dwarf galaxies.

Triplet of bright galaxies in the constellation of Leo (The Lion), together with a multitude of fainter objects: distant background

galaxies and much closer Milky Way stars. The image hints at the power of the VST and OmegaCAM for surveying the

extragalactic Universe and for mapping the low brightness objects of the galactic halo.

Credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM. Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute (space.com)

On page 4 of the report is a chart that shows the 20 brightest stars in the constellation

Leo, they are sorted from brightest to dimmest.

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Vis. Abs.
Name B F G. Var HD HIP RA DEC mag. mag. Dist. (ly) Sp. class
10h 08m +11° 58′
Regulus α 32 87901 49669 22.46s 01.9″ 1.36 −0.52 77 B7V
Denebol 11h 49m +14° 34′
a β 94 102647 57632 03.88s 20.4″ 2.14 1.92 36 A3Vvar
10h 19m +19° 50′
γ1 Leo γ1 41 89484 50583 58.16s 30.7″ 2.37 −0.92 126 K0III
11h 14m +20° 31′
δ Leo δ 68 97603 54872 06.41s 26.5″ 2.56 1.32 58 A4V
09h 45m +23° 46′
ε Leo ε 17 84441 47908 51.10s 27.4″ 2.97 −1.46 251 G0II
11h 14m +15° 25′
θ Leo θ 70 97633 54879 14.44s 47.1″ 3.33 −0.35 178 A2V
10h 16m +23° 25′
ζ Leo ζ 36 89025 50335 41.40s 02.4″ 3.43 −1.08 260 F0III
10h 07m +16° 45′
η Leo η 30 87737 49583 19.95s 45.6″ 3.48 −5.60 2131 A0Ib
09h 41m +09° 53′
ο Leo A ο 14 83808 47508 09.12s 32.6″ 3.52 0.43 135 A5V+...
09h 41m +09° 54′
ο Leo B ο 14 83809 13.40s 35.0″ 3.7
10h 19m +19° 50′
γ2 Leo γ2 41 89485 58.60s 26.0″ 3.8
10h 32m +09° 18′
ρ Leo ρ 47 14 91316 51624 48.68s 23.7″ 3.84 −7.38 5719 B1Ib SB
09h 52m +26° 00′
μ Leo μ 24 85503 48455 45.96s 25.5″ 3.88 0.83 133 K0III
11h
23m +10° 31′ F2IV
ι Leo ι 78 99028 55642 55.37s 46.9″ 4 2.08 79 SB
11h
21m +06° 01′ B9.5V
σ Leo σ 77 46 98664 55434 08.25s 45.7″ 4.05 −0.04 214 s
10h
55m +24° 44′
54 Leo 54 94601 53417 36.85s 59.1″ 4.3 −0.44 289 A1
11h
10092 36m −00° 49′
υ Leo υ 91 69 0 56647 56.93s 25.9″ 4.3 0.61 178 G9III
09h
31m +22° 58′ K5IIIva
λ Leo λ 4 82308 46750 43.24s 05.0″ 4.32 −0.75 336 r
10h
07m +09° 59′
31 Leo A 31 87837 49637 54.32s 51.6″ 4.39 −0.23 274 K4III

Credit: https: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Leo

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In additional reporting for ​space.com​, Elizabeth Howell explained that recent exoplanet

discoveries have shown a treasure trove of strange worlds and at least one planet that is possibly

habitable by humans (Zimmerman). Howell in her report says that in 2008, astronomers found it

orbiting a dying red giant star known as HD 102272. It is roughly 1,200 light years from Earth.

Astronomers charted that the star was quite bloated and thought this interaction to be interesting.

There are plans to observe its movements in the future (Zimmerman).

In 2010 Astronomers announced the discovery of a huge planet that they named GJ 436b.

Even weider discoveries were to come involving Leo. In 2015 astronomers announced Gliese

436 b (GJ 436B), a Neptune sized exoplanet was approximately 20 times more massive than our

planet, Earth and had a large gas cloud streaming away from it for million of miles

(Zimmerman). An announcement in 2017 showed the planets orbit was also strange, it moves

over the stars poles. Which is quite different than Earth’s solar system, where the planets orbits

gather around the equator of the Sun.

Discovered in August 2004, ​Gliese 436​ orbits a red-dwarf star located in the constellation Leo, around 

33.4 light-years away. ​Credit: sci-news.com

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Explained by Dr. Peter Wheatley of the University Warwick, UK, what we can see in the

picture above is a large cloud of hydrogen gas absorbing the light from a red dwarf star as its

exoplanet , Gliese 7436b passes in front (sci-news.com). This cloud is created because of X rays

that are emitted from the red dwarf burning off Gliese 436b’s upper atmosphere. “Around 1,000

metric tons of hydrogen are being burnt off from Gliese 436b’s atmosphere every second; which

equates to only 0.1 percent of its total mass every billion years,” Wheatley said (sci-news.com).

Wheatley added:

This cloud of hydrogen is very spectacular. Although the evaporation rate doesn’t threaten the

planet right now, we know that the star was more active in the past. This means that the planet’s

atmosphere evaporated faster during its first billion years of existence. Overall, we estimate that

it may have lost up to 10 percent of its atmosphere. (sci-news.com)

The cloud discovered around Gliese 436b could turn out to be a valuable find for

characterizing atmospheres of the population of Neptunes and super Earths when it comes to UV

observations, said by co author Dr. Vincent Bourrier from the Observatory at the University of

Geneva (sci-news.com).

Astronomers think that evaporation such as this could have happened in the beginning of

the Solar System, when Earth’s atmosphere was Hydrogen rich (sci-news.com). Astronomers

also believe that this could happen to Earth’s atmosphere at the end of our planet’s life, when the

Sun swells up to become a red giant and boils off the rest of our atmosphere, before

overwhelming our planet (sci-news.com).

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Works Cited

Blanche, Roesser. ​The Story of Leo the Lion​. Gareth Stevens Publishing, 2016.

EBSCO​host​,

libprox1.slcc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d

b=edsebk&AN=967587&site=eds-live​.

Zimmermann, Kim Ann. “Leo Constellation: Facts About the Lion.” ​Space.com​,

www.space.com/16845-leo-constellation.html​.

“Leo Constellation.” ​Constellation Guide​,

www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/leo-constellation/​.

“Leo Constellation.” ​Constellation Guide​,

www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/leo-constellation/​.

“List of Stars in Leo.” ​Wikipedia​, Wikimedia Foundation, 6 Apr. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Leo.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stars_in_Leo (Links to an external site.)Links to an

external site.

www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-gliese-436b-comet-like-tail-02951.htm