Expert: Ed - 9/17/2006

Question
Could you tell me about Alaraph?  I looked it up but it was confusing and there wasn't much on it

Thanks!

Answer
Tzeitel,

This is a complicated subject, so don't feel bad if you get confused.

The names of the stars are very ancient.  Many of them, including Alaraph, come from old Arabic words originally.  In pre-historic times, before there was Islam, and sometimes even before writing existed, Arabic nomads and shepards looked up at the sky and gave the stars names.

In the Dark Ages in Europe, there was a lot of confusion about science in general, as you may know.  Astronomy and astrology were not differentiated, for example.  Also, the ancient manuscripts which recorded the names of the stars were often lost, or, ****MOST IMPORTANTLY****, COPIED WRONG BY MEDIEVAL MONKS.  Face it, not many medieval monks could read Arabic.  They were doing pretty well if they could even read Greek, although of course their Latin was usually good (better than mine).  Therefore, they often got confused when they were copying old manuscripts over for posterity.

Alaraph was, originally, the name of some star in the constellation that we call Virgo today.  But sometime in the past few thousand years, the exact star that was called Alaraph became confused, and lost.  Today, there are three stars in Virgo which are occasionally called Alaraph.  These stars are scientifically called Alpha Virginis, Beta Virginis, and Epsilon Virginis.

Alpha Virginis is more commonly known as Spica.  Beta Virginis is more commonly known as Zavijava.  Epsilon Virginis is more commonly known as Vindemiatrix.

I am personally interested in this subject, so if you'd like to discuss it more, feel free to get back to me.  Unfortunately, I don't have my relevant reference books on me right now.  They are at home.  But if you'd like to get back to me in a day or two, I could give you more information.

If not, you may find this link helpful.
http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/starnames/

If you scroll down in this link:
http://www.naic.edu/~gibson/starnames/starnames.html

to Virgo, you will see that it only mentions Beta Virginis as being sometimes called Alaraph.  But sometimes, as I said, other stars in Virgo also get slapped with the same name.

Keep Looking Up!
--Ed