Oh, Blue, come forth!
Oh, Blue, arise!
Oh, Blue, ascend!
Oh, Blue, come in!
Oh, Blue, ascend!
Oh, Blue, come in!
(ll. 1-5) I begin to sing about Poseidon, the great god, mover of the earth and fruitless sea, god of the deep who is also lord of Helicon and wide Aegae. A two-fold office the gods allotted you, O Shaker of the Earth, to be a tamer of horses and a saviour of ships!
(ll. 6-7) Hail, Poseidon, Holder of the Earth, dark-haired lord! O blessed one, be kindly in heart and help those who voyage in ships!
(ll. 6-7) Hail, Poseidon, Holder of the Earth, dark-haired lord! O blessed one, be kindly in heart and help those who voyage in ships!
This week, a short 161 years ago, Urbain Le Verrier of Saint-Lô, France, was mulling about the Paris Observatory late at night (not an uncommon sight at the time) when he casually decided to spend an hour or so behind his telescope after playing with some numbers he'd been gathering for several months. Within a matter of minutes, he found what he was looking for, and in doing so, put centuries of speculation regarding the irregularities of Uranus's orbit to rest. Though initially contested by British astronomer John Couch Adams, Le Verrier's prediction of the mysterious eighth planet's orbit is considered by most to be the official discovery of Neptune, despite Galileo's observations of the planet in the early 1600s (he mistook Neptune for a fixed star, unwittingly witnessing the frosty giant in retrograde). Following the drama regarding who discovered it when, the name Neptune was decided upon by the international community after various suggestions including Janus and Oceanus.
Derived from the Roman Neptūnus, the barely observable blue tint of the planet suggested that it was an ocean world, and was mostly responsible for it's namesake, Neptune being the Roman God of the Sea. Also worshiped by the Greeks (especially by those who traveled by sea) as Posidon, the Greeks and the Romans both considered him a particularly moody entity, his better moods resulting in calmer seas, and his frustrations channeled into floods and storms and waves capable of tearing a ship to shreds, making Neptune a more fitting title than those who named it could have ever imagined, given the planet's weather. Furthering his reputation amongst travelers of the time, Neptune the Deity was known to both cultures as the God of Horses in addition to having dominion over the sea. I find the image of sailors drowning horses to appease Neptune before setting out on a voyage particularly resonant. On perhaps a lighter note, he was also known as Neptune Equester - the patron saint of horse racing. One of the two temples in Rome dedicated to Neptune is located just outside the Circus Flaminius, an Ancient Roman horse racing track.
As is the mysteriously infallible trend in ancient mythology, there were plenty of analogous deities associated with other cultures across the globe ready to be applied to the eighth and most distant planet of our solar system. Neptune is known in India as Varuna, god of water and the sky, not to mention of Law and The Underworld. Varuna and Posidon both held extremely high positions in the hierarchy of the gods - Zeus and Hades being Posidon's brothers, and Varuna being chief of the Adityas and the most prominent Asura. Both the Indian and Roman/Greek based gods were frequently portrayed as riding the mythical Hippocampus, a magical sea horse first recognized by anthropologists in early Etruscan wall-paintings. This mythical horse also happens to share a name with the section of the brain responsible in part for memory and spatial navigation - the part of the brain most affected by marijuana use (its impairment being at least partially responsible for the sudden meandering of what was supposed to be a quick little post on the discovery of Neptune - let's get back on track, shall we?).
Visited by man's tools only once, by Voyager II in 1989, the big blue sentry at the edge of our solar system was found to be considerably more wild than it's relatively peaceful exterior would suggest. Frequently plagued by storms large enough to fit several of the telluric planets within their seething torrents of poisonous gas (featuring winds exceeding 2,000 KPH, the most extreme winds anywhere in the solar system), Voyager II found that Neptune's core stays warmer than anyone had a right to expect at the time of the probe's arrival. Consisting in part of oceanic clouds of methane gas, which really ought to be frozen considering Neptune receives about 1/1000th of the light from the sun that Earth does at it's distance of approximately 30 AUs from Sol, the planet's wild weather results in the gas being released from it's lower, toastier atmospheres only to freeze and diffuse as it approaches the surface during Neptune's warmer seasons ("summer" consisting of about 40 earth years). This stream of methane from either the northern or southern hemispheres, depending on which axis is presently closer to the sun, is responsible for the planet's being so gloriously blue.
A Neptune Orbiter is currently under consideration by NASA - though unfortunately, following their pushing the projected launch date from 2016 to 2030, it appears it may be going the same route as the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, officially canceled in 2005 after over a decade of hype and excitement surrounding the idea of finally getting under Europa's skin.
Neptune is presently sitting out in Capricorn on the West Coast of the United States for those of you with nice telescopes - go check her out if you can. I can't think of a single non-shamanistic activity equivalent to viewing the furthest conventionally observable object in our solar system from the comfort of one's own backyard.
Derived from the Roman Neptūnus, the barely observable blue tint of the planet suggested that it was an ocean world, and was mostly responsible for it's namesake, Neptune being the Roman God of the Sea. Also worshiped by the Greeks (especially by those who traveled by sea) as Posidon, the Greeks and the Romans both considered him a particularly moody entity, his better moods resulting in calmer seas, and his frustrations channeled into floods and storms and waves capable of tearing a ship to shreds, making Neptune a more fitting title than those who named it could have ever imagined, given the planet's weather. Furthering his reputation amongst travelers of the time, Neptune the Deity was known to both cultures as the God of Horses in addition to having dominion over the sea. I find the image of sailors drowning horses to appease Neptune before setting out on a voyage particularly resonant. On perhaps a lighter note, he was also known as Neptune Equester - the patron saint of horse racing. One of the two temples in Rome dedicated to Neptune is located just outside the Circus Flaminius, an Ancient Roman horse racing track.As is the mysteriously infallible trend in ancient mythology, there were plenty of analogous deities associated with other cultures across the globe ready to be applied to the eighth and most distant planet of our solar system. Neptune is known in India as Varuna, god of water and the sky, not to mention of Law and The Underworld. Varuna and Posidon both held extremely high positions in the hierarchy of the gods - Zeus and Hades being Posidon's brothers, and Varuna being chief of the Adityas and the most prominent Asura. Both the Indian and Roman/Greek based gods were frequently portrayed as riding the mythical Hippocampus, a magical sea horse first recognized by anthropologists in early Etruscan wall-paintings. This mythical horse also happens to share a name with the section of the brain responsible in part for memory and spatial navigation - the part of the brain most affected by marijuana use (its impairment being at least partially responsible for the sudden meandering of what was supposed to be a quick little post on the discovery of Neptune - let's get back on track, shall we?).
Visited by man's tools only once, by Voyager II in 1989, the big blue sentry at the edge of our solar system was found to be considerably more wild than it's relatively peaceful exterior would suggest. Frequently plagued by storms large enough to fit several of the telluric planets within their seething torrents of poisonous gas (featuring winds exceeding 2,000 KPH, the most extreme winds anywhere in the solar system), Voyager II found that Neptune's core stays warmer than anyone had a right to expect at the time of the probe's arrival. Consisting in part of oceanic clouds of methane gas, which really ought to be frozen considering Neptune receives about 1/1000th of the light from the sun that Earth does at it's distance of approximately 30 AUs from Sol, the planet's wild weather results in the gas being released from it's lower, toastier atmospheres only to freeze and diffuse as it approaches the surface during Neptune's warmer seasons ("summer" consisting of about 40 earth years). This stream of methane from either the northern or southern hemispheres, depending on which axis is presently closer to the sun, is responsible for the planet's being so gloriously blue.A Neptune Orbiter is currently under consideration by NASA - though unfortunately, following their pushing the projected launch date from 2016 to 2030, it appears it may be going the same route as the Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, officially canceled in 2005 after over a decade of hype and excitement surrounding the idea of finally getting under Europa's skin.
Neptune is presently sitting out in Capricorn on the West Coast of the United States for those of you with nice telescopes - go check her out if you can. I can't think of a single non-shamanistic activity equivalent to viewing the furthest conventionally observable object in our solar system from the comfort of one's own backyard.
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Now playing: NoMeansNo - The End of All Things
