What is Canopus?
Canopus is a Greek name and is linked to Greek mythology, in particular to the chief pilot of the fleet of Menelaus. Menelaus was the Spartan King, whose wife Helen (of Troy), eloped with Paris and brought about the siege and destruction of that city, known as the Trojan War. In mythology, Menelaus pillaged Troy and regained his wife Helen. Canopus, the brave captain of the king’s ship managed to get his fleet safely back to Egyptian waters. Canopus is not only important to ancient seafarers; it is important to extra-terrestrial space-farers as well. By an intriguing coincidence, Canopus is an important navigational marker for interplanetary space probes, which use its light as a directional aid. One of these is the Voyager spacecraft. By manoeuvring Voyager to keep the sun and Canopus in sight of its sensors, the orientation of the spacecraft is fixed and the antenna pointed toward Earth. Its name, which originates from the Coptic or Egyptian Kahi Nub, means “Golden Earth”. Canopus ha
Canopus is the second-brightest star in the night sky, after Sirius. The origin of its name is ancient and very poorly understood. It may be named after the pilot of a ship in a Trojan legend, as it is the brightest star in the now-obsolete Argo Navis constellation, which represented the ship piloted by the Argonauts. Canopus is in the constellation Carina, the keel, used to refer to the part of the “giant ship” it used to be considered a part of. Canopus has a very high absolute luminosity, and is the second brightest star despite its distance of 310 light years. Sirius, the brightest star, is only 8.3 light years away. If Canopus were located where Sirius is today, it would be many times brighter and by far the brightest star in the sky. Canopus is a yellowish-white F-class supergiant star. Located well into the southern hemisphere, Canopus is not visible from locations north of Kentucky. It has a luminosity about 13,600 times greater than the Sun and a diameter of 130 solar radii, a
