Glorious Stars in Tonight's Sky: all the world's myths are celestial!

Above is a new video I've just published entitled "Glorious Stars in Tonight's Sky: all the world's myths are celestial!"

In it, we visit one of the most beautiful and mythologically-important regions of the night sky, with some discussion of how to identify the constellations Hercules, Ophiuchus and Scorpio (as well as Corona Borealis and the bright star Vega).

Ophiuchus and Hercules are not exactly easy or obvious to locate in the heavens, even on a clear night, but with these tips you should have no difficulty finding them for yourself, if you are able to get to a location with clear views and relatively low levels of light pollution.

The fact that these constellations, which play such important roles in the system of ancient myth operating in cultures around the globe, are somewhat difficult to identify and not exactly "intuitively obvious" provides an important counter to the argument I sometimes hear, which says that "of course the world's myths might be influenced by the stars: after all, you can see the stars wherever you are on planet earth."

Of course, it is true that we can see the stars around the globe, but it is by no means obvious that cultures would all independently decide to base their myths on celestial metaphor. It also should be evident that even if all cultures independently came up with such an idea, they would probably identify very different constellations and attribute very different characteristics and personalities to the constellations they designed -- and yet what we actually find is that the very same system appears to be operating around the globe, with constellations sharing similar attributes and characteristics across cultures, even on opposite sides of the earth.

I hope you will enjoy this new video and that you will have an opportunity to go outside under the glorious night sky and observe some of the constellations in person. And perhaps some will be able to find constellations such as Ophiuchus and Hercules for the very first time, which I find very exciting!

In fact, I'm excited every time I see them, no matter how many times I might have seen them before.