At We The Curious we love storytelling. Stories have the power to connect us to our past and to the world around us. In this article, Planetarium Presenter Paul Cornish explores stories inspired by the night sky. Can stories about the stars provide us with an insight into who we are today? And what are the other possible benefits to stargazing?
Why are the stars important to us?
On a cold, winter evening in 2023, a young girl made of stardust went to hear some stories.
As the girl and her mother entered the venue, they were asked a question; “Why are the stars important to us.”
They were encouraged to write their answers on a paper star that would be put on display by the venue’s entrance.
The young girl thought for a moment. She remembered hearing somewhere that people spent their lives looking at the night sky and have been doing so all through history. They even invented telescopes to get a closer look!
But why? The stars can be very pretty, but does that make them important?
Why do we look at the stars?
“They can hold info about our past.” We asked our visitors to tell us why the stars are important to them.
Can the stars help us to find our way?
Around 50 years earlier, after centuries of European colonisation, a Hawaiian renaissance began.
Much cultural knowledge had been lost over the years, but in 1970, there was a resurgence!
Indigenous Hawaiian language, music, and dance was everywhere, and the incredible art of Polynesian wayfinding made a comeback.
Wayfinding is a method used by Polynesian voyagers to navigate the ocean. Rather than instruments such as compasses or GPS, these voyagers rely on a highly detailed knowledge of wildlife, the ocean, and the sky.
One of the ways this knowledge was shared was with traditional stories, such as the legend of Humu.
The legend tells of a great navigator named Humu and his two sons. They were asked by the King to plan a voyage between the islands of O'ahu and Kauai.
Humu and his sons knew that all they had to do was steer towards the bright star known today in many parts of the world as Altair.
Many canoes were to set out from O’ahu. In the lead canoe were Humu’s two sons, while Humu and the king sailed at the back – making sure no one was left behind.
The voyage was going well, until the steersman of the first canoe grew frustrated at having to follow the advice of Humu’s sons. In his anger, he threw the two brothers overboard.
The young men swam towards the bright star that would lead them to Kauai. Just as they began to tire and struggle against the waves, they were rescued by the king and Humu!
Eventually, Humu, his sons, and his king reached Kauai. But they were the only ones to do so. The other canoes had followed the wrong star and had gone missing at sea.
To help navigators remember the importance of this star, it was named after Humu. Humu’s two sons are remembered as the two slightly dimmer stars either side of it. Together, Humu and his sons still guide voyagers to this day.
Humu, with his two sons, one above and one below. Credit: Stellarium
“Guide (navigate) the way.”
Can the stars inspire us to create art?
Decades before the Hawaiian renaissance, in 1889, a man looked out between the bars of his window. It was a warm summer night in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, just before the sunrise.
The man had come to this place to rest and recover. He knew he should probably be sleeping, but all that mattered to him was the view from his window.
He blew out his candle. He didn’t need it. The crescent moon shone brightly, and below that the first hint of dawn was starting to creep above the horizon.
Through the window, the sleeping village was visible, only partly obscured by the silhouette of a great tree in the foreground. The bright, steady light of Venus seemed to peer from just behind the tree, while overhead, a crooked line of twinkling stars formed part of the constellation, Aries.
The man began to paint.
Later, in a letter to a friend, the man described how disappointed he was with his finished painting.
"I have been slaving away on nature the whole year… And yet, once again I let myself go reaching for stars that are too big—a new failure—and I have had enough of it."
After his death in 1890, Vincent van Gogh became known as one of the most famous artists who ever lived. The Starry Night is one of his most celebrated works.
When he reached for the stars from the window of his asylum room, Van Gogh communicated something that still resonates with people all over world today.
The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
Van Gogh’s view from his window, recreated with Stellarium
“They are an inspiration in the sky above us?”
Can the stars help us to grow food?
289 years before Van Gogh painted The Starry Night, on the night of the Festival of San Juan, a group of farmers were climbing the Andes.
It had been a long trek, but their spirits were high.
Finally, the farmers reached their destination. They had walked to one of the highest ridges of the Andes. One of their number broke into song, and it wasn’t long before the rest joined in.
All they had to do now was drink. Drink and wait and look out towards the night sky.
The farmers were waiting for a glimpse of a bright cluster of stars that was known in other parts of the world as the Pleiades. It was a familiar tradition, performed on the same night of the year, every year, for as long as they could remember.
The brightness of the star cluster would indicate whether the rainy season would arrive on time that year or be delayed. This was important information. Farming on the highest mountain range outside Asia is no easy task, and the farmers needed to know when to plant their potato crops.
Finally, after much drinking and singing, the star cluster appeared above the horizon. The cluster was dim! In the months to come they would follow the guidance of the star cluster and delay their planting.
The following year, on the same night, the farmers climbed the Andes again. And the year after that. And the year after that. The tradition continues to this day.
In the year 2000, scientists from the USA used satellite data to confirm a connection between a dim Pleiades on the Festival of San Juan and less rain at the start of the rainy season.
High, thin clouds in June – the kind that might obscure the farmers’ view of the Pleiades – are a sign that El Niño is on its way! El Niño is the name given to the warming of sea temperatures in certain parts of the Pacific Ocean that occurs every few years. In October, during an El Niño year, there is less rain in the Andes.
But this isn’t news to the farmers of the Andes.
This connection between the land and the sky has been their way of life since at least the year 1600.
“They provide light in the darkest of times!”
Can we use the sky as a calendar?
20,000 years earlier, high in the mountains of Central Africa, a woman sat by a lake.
On this night, just like every other night, the woman looked at the moon. It was full and round and very bright. Several nights earlier, it was a crescent. Several nights before that it had vanished from the sky. In the nights to come it would do so again.
The woman was fascinated. She knew there was a pattern, but how to keep track?
In her hand was an animal bone that was as long as her palm was wide. The bone shone bright white in the light of the full moon.
Taking a sharp stone in her other hand, she began to carefully carve into the bone.
Hundreds of years later, the small community of farmers and fishers that the woman called home was wiped out by a volcanic eruption.
Millennia later, in 1950, the bone was found by explorers. Archaeologists and scientists speculated as to the purpose of the tool. Some of them observed that it seemed to be a six-month lunar calendar.
The Ishango Bone, as it came to be known, is now regarded as one of the oldest mathematical tools ever discovered.
The Ishango Bone. Credit: Daniel Baise, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Are we made of stars?
13.8 billion years earlier, there was an infinitely small, infinitely dense, and infinitely hot point.
It expanded, stretching everywhere all at once. Time, space, and matter began.
This was the Big Bang.
In this new Universe, only the lightest elements existed - hydrogen, helium, and some lithium. Lumps of gas began to clump together, forming the very first stars.
Millions of years passed, and the largest of these stars exploded – they went supernova! This sent more lumps of gas out into the Universe. Some of these lumps of gas contained new elements that were heavier than hydrogen and helium. They clumped together to form a new generation of stars.
Once again, millions of years passed. Some of these newer stars went supernova. This sent out even heavier elements like carbon and oxygen.
Many of these heavier elements can be found in the bodies of intelligent beings on a small planet that orbits one of the billions of stars in the Universe.
These beings look back at the stars and use what they see to mark time, farm the land, navigate the ocean, and create art.
They also tell stories.
“They explode.”
So, why are the stars important?
On a cold, winter evening, billions of years after the Universe began, a young girl made of stardust stood with a pen in her hand, trying to think of what to write on a paper star.
She could feel her mother getting impatient beside her. The stories would be starting soon.
Then it hit her. Of course, she smiled to herself. That must be it! She wrote her answer. The one possible reason why the stars are important to us.
“They taste like cheese.”
The young girl took her mother’s hand and together they entered the venue.
The clouds above the venue parted and the stars twinkled.
"They taste like cheese.”
Want to stargaze but not sure where to start? Take a look at our article "Stargazing - where do I start?"
Curious about Stellarium? Find out more about this free Planetarium software by checking out our article "How do I use Stellarium? A guide to the basics."
Would you like to know more about Polynesian wayfinding? Check out the Polynesian Voyaging Society.
