Observations placeholder
Ptolemy after 150 AD - Corvus
Identifier
026534
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Constellation |
Abbreviations |
Genitive |
Origin |
Meaning |
Brightest star |
|
IAU |
Other |
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Corvus |
Crv |
Corv |
Corvi |
ancient (Ptolemy) |
crow |
Gienah |
Corvus is a small constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. Its name means "raven" in Latin. One of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, it depicts a raven, a bird associated with stories about the god Apollo, perched on the back of Hydra the water snake. The four brightest stars, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, and Beta Corvi, form a distinctive quadrilateral in the night sky.
With an apparent magnitude of 2.59, Gamma Corvi—also known as Gienah—is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an aging blue giant around four times as massive as the Sun. The young star Eta Corvi has been found to have two debris disks. Three star systems have exoplanets, and a fourth planetary system is unconfirmed. TV Corvi is a dwarf nova—a white dwarf and brown dwarf in very close orbit.