in astronomy, a constellation of the Southern Hemisphere that is one of four constellations formed from the Ptolemaic constellation Argo Navis by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille in the 18th century. Puppis is visible from middle latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, but most of it lies close to the horizon in parts of the hemisphere that are near 40° N. latitude. Bordered by Canis Major, Columba, Pictor, Carina, Vela, Pyxis, Hydra, and Monoceros, it reaches its highest peak on January 15 at 10:00 pm
Puppis refers the prow or the stern of a ship and it represents that part of Argo Navis from which it was formed. Lacaille named the other constellations created from Argo Navis after other parts of a ship: Vela, meaning “sails”; Carina, meaning “keel”; and Pyxis, meaning “compass.”
The former constellation Argo Navis represented the ship that Jason and the Argonauts used on their quest to find the golden fleece. The ship was named for its builder, Argus, who was following orders from the goddess Athena. She placed an oak beam that was from an oracle into the prow and which could speak. During a dangerous journey through rocks, a part of the prow was torn away. Some ancient writers maintained that the constellation Argo Navis represents the first ship ever built to weather the oceans. In Johann Bode’s ‘Uranographia’, published in 1801, only the stern of the ship is shown. Some versions of the myth claim that it was broken off by the rocks, and other explanations claim that when Jason visited the rotting ship as an old man the stern broke off and killed him.
The alpha and beta stars of Argo Navis were assigned to Carina, so that Puppis does not have stars with these designations. Puppis’ main stars are Zeta, Nu, Xi, Pi, Rho, Sigma, and Tau Puppis. The field of Puppis covers a large part of the north-south section that lies between Canis Major and Vela. Since Puppis extends over a southern part of the Milky Way, it has many variables and open clusters.
Its brightest star is Zeta Puppis, which is a blue-white, second magnitude star that is one of the brightest and hottest stars in the sky. It has a surface temperature near 35,000° Celsius and is 60,000 times brighter than the sun. Zeta Puppis is about 2,400 light-years away from Earth. The notable third-magnitude stars in the constellation are Pi, Rho, Tau, and Xi Puppis. The latter is a yellow supergiant with a fifth-magnitude orange companion, 750 and 320 light-years away, respectively. Pi Puppis is an orange giant, while Rho and Tau Puppis are both yellow giants. Rho Puppis is a “Delta Scuti”-type variable star that shifts every 3 hours and 23 minutes.
Seen in both hemispheres, the Nova Puppis 1942 (CP Puppis) appeared on Nov. 8, 1942, about 5 degrees north-northeast of Zeta Puppis at a magnitude of 0.2. It quickly faded and has been referred to as a supernova, hot blue star with emission lines. Variations in its radial velocity have led to speculation that it is a close binary in a rapid orbit. It has been estimated that CP Puppis is about 4,800 light-years away from Earth and that it had as much energy in two months as the sun has in 20,000 years.
The double star Sigma Puppis is 7 degrees southwest of Zeta Puppis with companions that are a third-magnitude orange giant and a yellow main-sequence, eighth-magnitude star with a separation of 22.4 seconds. The main star is a spectroscopic binary creating a triple system in Sigma Puppis. A third-magnitude variable, L2 (GC 9604), one of the brightest red variables, was discovered in 1872. It is somewhat irregular, with a 141-day period that shifts from sixth to third magnitude. An unusual feature of this star is a symmetrical light curve in which its rise is exactly half its period of shifting. It had a companion, star h3943, whose separation has been increasing at such a rate that it is no longer listed as a double. There are many other double and multiple stars cataloged in Puppis.
The lists of clusters in Puppis vary from 40 to 73. Notable is the open cluster M46 (NGC 2437) that has some 150 stars of ninth to 13th magnitude. The brightest stars in this cluster are blue giants that are a hundred times brighter than the sun. Its distance is estimated to be somewhere between 3,200 and 5,400 light-years away from Earth. West of it is M47 (NGC 2422) which has a group of 45 stars less than 2,000 light-years from Earth. At the center of M47 is a double star with seventh-magnitude companions. Other star clusters of note are M93, which contains a tight group of about 50 stars in an irregular shape, and NGC 2477, a compact, cloud-like formation of 300 stars, ,
Critically reviewed by James Seevers