About

Cygnus is a northern constellation on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from the Latinized Greek word for swan. Cygnus is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn, and it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross (in contrast to the Southern Cross). Cygnus was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. Cygnus contains Deneb (ذنب, translit. ḏanab, tail) – one of the brightest stars in the night sky and the most distant first-magnitude star – as its "tail star" and one corner of the Summer Triangle the constellation forming an east pointing altitude of the triangle. It also has some notable X-ray sources and the giant stellar association of Cygnus OB2. One of the stars of this association, NML Cygni, is one of the largest stars currently known. The constellation is also home to Cygnus X-1, a distant X-ray binary containing a supergiant and unseen massive companion that was the first object widely held to be a black hole. Many star systems in Cygnus have known planets as a result of the Kepler Mission observing one patch of the sky, an area around Cygnus. Most of the east has part of the Hercules–Corona Borealis Great Wall in the deep sky, a giant galaxy filament that is the largest known structure in the observable universe, covering most of the northern sky.

History and mythology

In Greek mythology, Cygnus has been identified with several different legendary swans. Zeus disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda, Spartan king Tyndareus's wife, who gave birth to the Gemini, Helen of Troy, and Clytemnestra; Orpheus was transformed into a swan after his murder, and was said to have been placed in the sky next to his lyre (Lyra); and a man named Cygnus (Greek for swan) was transformed into his namesake. Later Romans also associated this constellation with the tragic story of Phaethon, the son of Helios the sun god, who demanded to ride his father's sun chariot for a day. Phaethon, however, was unable to control the reins, forcing Zeus to destroy the chariot (and Phaethon) with a thunderbolt, causing it to plummet to the earth into the river Eridanus. According to the myth, Phaethon's close friend or lover, Cygnus of Liguria, grieved bitterly and spent many days diving into the river to collect Phaethon's bones to give him a proper burial. The gods were so touched by Cygnus's devotion that they turned him into a swan and placed him among the stars. In Ovid's Metamorphoses, there are three people named Cygnus, all of whom are transformed into swans. Alongside Cygnus, noted above, he mentions a boy from Aetolia who throws himself off a cliff when his companion Phyllius refuses to give him a tamed bull that he demands, but he is transformed into a swan and flies away. He also mentions a son of Poseidon, an invulnerable warrior in the Trojan War who is eventually killed by Achilles, but Poseidon saves him by transforming him into a swan. Together with other avian constellations near the summer solstice, Vultur cadens and Aquila, Cygnus may be a significant part of the origin of the myth of the Stymphalian Birds, one of The Twelve Labours of Hercules.