Puppis ("

stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. O ...

") is a

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

in the southern sky. It was originally part of the traditional constellation of

Argo Navis Argo Navis (the Ship Argo), or simply Argo, is one of Ptolemy's 48 constellations, now a grouping of three IAU constellations. It is formerly a single large constellation in the southern sky. The genitive is "Argus Navis", abbreviated "Arg". ...

(the ship of

Jason Jason ( ; ) was an ancient Greek mythological hero and leader of the Argonauts, whose quest for the Golden Fleece is featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Med ...

and the

Argonauts The Argonauts ( ; ) were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War (around 1300 BC) accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, ''Argo'', named after it ...

), which was divided into three parts, the other two being

Carina Carina may refer to: Places Australia * Carina, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane * Carina Heights, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane * Carina, Victoria, a locality in Mildura Serbia * Carina, Osečina, a village in the Kolubara District ...

(the keel and hull), and Vela (the sails). Puppis is the largest of the three constellations in

square degree __NOTOC__ A square degree (deg2) is a non- SI unit measure of solid angle. Other denotations include ''sq. deg.'' and (°)2. Just as degrees are used to measure parts of a circle, square degrees are used to measure parts of a sphere. Analogous ...

s. It is one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; , UAI) is an international non-governmental organization (INGO) with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreach, education, and developmen ...

History

The constellation of Argo Navis is recorded in

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

texts, derived from

ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower E ...

around 1000 BC. According to

Plutarch Plutarch (; , ''Ploútarchos'', ; – 120s) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo (Delphi), Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for his ''Parallel Lives'', ...

, its equivalent in

Egyptian astronomy Egyptian astronomy started in prehistory, prehistoric times, in the Prehistoric Egypt, Predynastic Period. In the 5th millennium BCE, the stone circles at Nabta Playa may have made use of astronomical alignments. By the time the historical Ancie ...

was the "Boat of

Osiris Osiris (, from Egyptian ''wikt:wsjr, wsjr'') was the ancient Egyptian deities, god of fertility, agriculture, the Ancient Egyptian religion#Afterlife, afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was ...

". As Argo Navis was roughly 28% larger than the next largest constellation, Hydra, it was sub-divided into three sections in 1752 by the French astronomer

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the 88 constellations. From 1750 to 1754, he studied the sky at the Cape of Goo ...

, including Puppis, which he referred to as "''Argûs in puppi''". Despite the division, Lacaille kept a single set of

Bayer designation A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek alphabet, Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive case, genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer design ...

s for the whole constellation, Argo. Therefore, Carina has the α, β, and ε, Vela has γ and δ, Puppis has ζ, and so on. In 1844,

John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor and experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical work. ...

proposed complete dividing Argo Navis in accordance with Lacaille's divisions. However, the constellation continued to be used into the 20th century, and officially received a three-letter designation alongside its divisions in 1922. Puppis, along with Carina and Vela, was included in the list of modern IAU constellations in 1930.

Features

Named stars

Planetary systems

Several

extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detect ...

systems have been found around

star A star is a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by Self-gravitation, self-gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night sk ...

s in the constellation Puppis, including: * On July 1, 2003, a

planet A planet is a large, Hydrostatic equilibrium, rounded Astronomical object, astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets b ...

was found orbiting the star HD 70642. This

planetary system A planetary system is a set of gravity, gravitationally bound non-stellar Astronomical object, bodies in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although ...

is much like

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

with a wide, circular orbit and a long-period. * On May 17, 2006, HD 69830 was discovered to have three Neptune-mass planets, the first multi-planetary system without any Jupiter-like or

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

-like planets. The star also hosts an

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

at the region between middle planet to outer planet. * On June 21, 2007, the first extrasolar planet found in the

open cluster An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of tens to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and ...

NGC 2423, was discovered around the

red giant A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The stellar atmosphere, outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface t ...

star NGC 2423-3. The planet is at least 10.6 times the mass of Jupiter and orbits at 2.1 AU distance. * On September 22, 2008, two Jupiter-like planets were discovered around HD 60532.

HD 60532 b HD 60532 b is an extrasolar planet located approximately 84 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis, orbiting the star HD 60532. This planet has a true mass of 3.15 times more than Jupiter, orbits at 0.77 AU, and takes 201.83 days to rev ...

has a

minimum mass In astronomy, minimum mass is the lower-bound calculated mass of observed objects such as planets, stars, binary systems, nebulae, and black holes. Minimum mass is a widely cited statistic for extrasolar planets detected by the radial velocit ...

of and orbits at 0.759 AU and takes 201.3 days to complete the orbit.

HD 60532 c HD 60532 c is an extrasolar planet located approximately 84 light-years away in the constellation of Puppis, orbiting the star HD 60532. This planet has a true mass of 7.46 times more than Jupiter, orbits at 1.58 AU, and takes 607 days to revolv ...

has a minimum mass of and orbits at 1.58 AU and takes 604 days to complete the orbit. * In 2023, Astronomers detected two

ice giant An ice giant is a giant planet composed mainly of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur. There are two ice giants in the Solar System: Uranus and Neptune. In astrophysics and planetary science ...

type

exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first det ...

s (both with a

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

of tens of

earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

s) having a collision event around the 300 million year old

designated as 2MASS J08152329-3859234.

Deep-sky objects

As the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

runs through Puppis, there are many

s in the constellation. M46 and M47 are two open clusters in the same binocular field. M47 can be seen with the naked eye under dark skies, and its brightest stars are 6th magnitude.

Messier 93 Messier 93 or M93, also known as NGC 2447 or the Critter Cluster, is an open cluster in the modestly southern constellation Puppis, the imagined poop deck of the legendary ''Argo (ship), Argo''. Observational history and appearance It was disco ...

(M93) is another open cluster somewhat to the south. NGC 2451 is a very bright open cluster containing the star c Puppis, and the near NGC 2477 is a good target for small telescopes. The star

Pi Puppis Pi Puppis, Latinisation of names, Latinized from π Puppis, also named Ahadi, is the List of stars in Puppis, second-brightest star in the southern constellation of Puppis. It has an apparent visual magnitude of about 2.7, so it ...

is the main component of a bright group of stars known as

Collinder 135 Collinder 135, known sometimes as the Pi Puppis Cluster, is an open cluster in Puppis constellation. It consists of six stars brighter than 6th magnitude, and a widespread population of fainter stars. It lies in the southern celestial hemisphere ...

. M46 is a circular open cluster with an overall magnitude of 6.1 at a distance of approximately 5400 light-years from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

. The

planetary nebula A planetary nebula is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer because they are unrelated to planets. The ...

NGC 2438 is superimposed; it is approximately 2900 light-years from Earth. M46 is classified as a Shapley class f and a Trumpler class III 2 m cluster. This means that it is a rich cluster that appears distinct from the star field, despite not being at its center. The cluster's stars, numbering between 50 and 100, have a moderate range in brightness.

References

Sources

* * Ian Ridpath and Wil Tirion (2017). ''Stars and Planets Guide'', Collins, London. .

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

, Princeton. . * Richard Hinckley Allen, ''Star Names, Their Lore and Legend'',

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, Dover.

External links

The Deep Photographic Guide to the Constellations: Puppis

{{Sky, 07, 30, 00, -, 30, 00, 00, 10 Constellations Southern constellations Constellations listed by Lacaille