Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Tempest in the sky

Yesterday Barbara and I went to see a performance of the stage-play "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare. Barbara had encouraged her philosophy students to see this production of the NC Shakespeare Festival due to the connection with "Ship in a Bottle" from the Star Trek: Next Generation TV series. I just went along for the fun.

Then the names of some of the characters reminded me of astronomy:

Ariel, the air spirit and a major force in the story, is also the name of one of the smaller moons of Uranus. The solar system body is covered with impact craters and long rift valleys, Damaged not too unlike the character on stage.

Miranda is the name of Prospero's daughter in the play, a young woman easy to fall asleep and not very experienced when it comes to men. Miranda is also the name of another small moon of Uranus, the surface of which looks like a jumble of different features not carefully reconstructed.

Ceres and Juno are sprites in the Shakespeare comedy. They are also two of the four largest bodies in the main asteroid belt.

Isn't it wonderful that astronomy is almost everywhere?

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