Star Gay-zing: Queer Asteroid Update

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but been a lot of reports about a newly discovered asteroid that is following us around in Earth’s orbit, like a couple of other “quasi-moons” we have. Perhaps it’s only me that has noticed because I’m interested in them.

But it made me think that it is about time I did an update on the asteroids that have been named after members of the lgbt+ community. So, here it is.

Each asteroid is preceded by its official number and name, its date of discovery, the date when the name was published, a quote from the official citation, and finally other notes of queer interest I can add.

2223 Sarpedon

Discovered 3 October 1977. Published 1 August 1991.

“One of the leaders of the Lycians, Sarpedon was killed by Patroclus in the Trojan War. At the command of Zeus, his body was seized by Apollo and returned to Lycia.”

Sarpedon was the lover of Prince Atymnius of Ethiopia, the son of King Cephus and Queen Cassiopeia. Patroclus, Zeus and Apollo are also lgbt+, and have asteroids named after them.

3200 Phaeton

Discovered 11 October 1983. Published 2 July 1985.

“This object associated with the Geminid meteor stream has the smallest known perihelion distance for a body in a short-period orbit and is named for the son of Helios, who operated the solar chariot for a day, lost control of it and almost set fire to the Earth.”

The god Zeus shot Phaeton out of the sky with a thunderbolt and he fell into the River Po. Phaeton’s lover, Cycnus, mourned his death and was turned into a swan by Apollo. You can read the full story here.

7091 Maryfields

Discovered 1 May 1992. Published 8 Nov 2019.

“Stagecoach Mary Fields (c.1832-1914) was an African-American folk hero and trailblazer. She was a mail carrier in Montana in her 60's, braving harsh weather but never missing a day. Loved by her community, her birthday was a local holiday. She refused to be limited by social norms or laws.”

I wrote about her “Extraordinary Life” several years ago, here.

26883 Marcelproust

Discovered 12 August 1994. Published 28 July 2021.

“Marcel Proust (1871–1922) was a French novelist and essayist, widely considered to be one of the most influential author of the 20th century. His monumental novel ‘Á la recherche du temps perdu’ was published in seven volumes between 1913 and 1927, the last three volumes being edited by his brother, Robert.”

This is the second asteroid named after the gay author, the first being 4474 Proust (listed here). Although the official citation of 4474 Proust specifically identifies the astrophysicist Dominique Proust as the individual after whom this asteroid is named, it states that it also honours Marcel Proust.

27400 Mikewong

Discovered 11 Mar 2000. Published 11 June 2021.

“Mike Wong (b.1971) is a planetary scientist at the University of California at Berkeley who studies giant planets in the Solar System. He is part of the team that discovered a moon around asteroid 624 Hektor, and he studied a 2009 impact on Jupiter while monitoring of the atmosphere with adaptive optics.”

His work on 624 Hektor with his colleague Frank Marchis, a fellow openly gay astrophysicist, is told here.

38083 Rhadamanthus

Discovered 17 April 1999. Published 24 July 2002.

“Rhadamanthus was a son of Zeus and Europa. Because of his just and upright life, after death he was appointed a judge of the dead and the ruler of Elysium, a blissfully beautiful area of the Underworld where those favoured by the gods spent their life after death.”

The Greek writer Athenaeus (170 AD-223 AD) wrote that Rhadamanthus was the lover of Talos (a human, not the giant bronze statue that came to life, as depicted in the film “Jason and the Argonauts”).

85030 Admetos

Discovered 24 September 1960. Published 28 October 2004.

“Admetus (Admetos), from Greek mythology. The King of Pherae was saved by Apollo from his fated death when his wife Alcestis offers to die in his place, father of Eumelos, the best charioteer in the Greek army during the Trojan War.”

One of Apollo’s many male lovers.

343158 Marsyas

Discovered 29 Apiil 2009. Published 14 May 2021.

“Marsyas, a Phrygian Satyr dared oppose Apollo in a musical duel. Marsyas lost when he could not play his flute upside-down. For his hubris he was tied to a tree, flayed, his blood turned into a stream. Marsyas is so named for its unusual retrograde orbit, that which opposes the motion of most solar system objects.”

Marsyas was the teacher and lover of the boy Olympos of Mysia, as stated by the philosopher Philostratus. After Marsyas was flayed alive Apollo gave his body to Olympos for burial.

442721 Kerouac

Discovered 18 October 2009. Published 23 May 2022.

“Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, known as Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) was an American writer and poet. His novels, including ‘On the Road’ and ‘The Subterraneans’, established a new writing style of spontaneous prose. Kerouac is considered a pioneer of the 1950s and 1960s Beat Generation.”

45595 Inman

Discovered 6 February 2000. Published 6 February 2023.

“Frederick John Inman (1934–2007) was an English actor best known for playing Mr. Humphries in the British comedy ‘Are You Being Served?’ (1972–1985), who went on to star in the Australian version of the same sitcom. In 1976 he was named both BBC TV Personality of the Year and ‘TV Times’ readers' Funniest Man on Television.”

John Inman was hugely popular. His mincing character Mr. Humphries gave the UK one of its most enduring catchphrases, “I’m free!” He was also one of the greatest pantomime dames in British theatre.

475080 Jarry

Discovered 26 October 2006. Published 20 December 2021.

“Alfred Jarry (1873–1907) was a French poet, novelist, writer and playwright. His play ‘Ubu Roi’ is often cited as a forerunner of Dada and the Surrealist movement of the 1920s. He also coined the term and philosophical concept of ‘pataphysics’, the science of imaginary solutions, which involves the destruction by the absurd of reason and language.”

Although Jarry is known to have had gay encounters in his younger years he didn’t seem to have had any romantic relationships with anyone, male or female, after that. Many of his works included gay characters and themes.

ASTEROID ALLIES

98 Ianthe

Discovered 18 April 1868. Published before 1903.

“Named for the young girl who became betrothed to Iphis, a Cretan girl who was changed by Isis into a man.”

In the pseudo-science of astrology, Ianthe is the influence behind dissatisfaction with one’s gender role, or with gender identity problems.

52965 Laurencebentz

Discovered 15 October 1998. Published 29 March 2023.

“Laurence Bentz (b.1958) is a French medical doctor, specializing in Public Health & Education Sciences. She contributed to tackling the HIV-AIDS epidemic at its onset, through clinical work, epidemiology, and research to enhance patient adherence to complex treatments. She also developed interventions to support the empowerment of chronically-ill people.

Star-Gayzing: Cervantes is a Real Star

In the past I’ve written a lot about minor planets (or asteroids, as they are also known) that are named after members of the lgbt+ community. I’ll be publishing another list in June. Some of the major and dwarf planets have names with lgbt+ associations (Jupiter/Zeus and Ganymede, for example). Further afield there are billions of stars waiting for us to give a name to.

For about 30 years astronomers have been discovering that a lot of stars have planets orbiting them. These are called exoplanets. Like every other object in the night sky that is discovered, whether they are stars, planets, asteroids or comets, they are given reference designations made up of letters and numbers. Not many of them have been given names, so today I’d like to concentrate on one of those stars and its exoplanets that have lgbt+ connections. This is the star system with the astronomical designation of Mu Arae.

First of all, where is Mu Arae? Its one of the stars in the little known constellation of Ara the Altar. This is a constellation immediately below the “tail” of Scorpius and can be seen in both the northern and southern hemispheres. It appears in the traditional sky lore of communities as far afield as the Mediterranean, China and Australia. None of Ara’s stars are particularly bright, and it doesn’t help that the Milky Way cuts straight behind it. In the star map below I have circled Mu Arae in red.

Now that we know where Mu Arae is, what is its new name? After a highly successful campaign the star was given the proper name Cervantes in 2015, after the great Spanish poet and author Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616).

In the late 20th century there was a lot of questioning into Cervantes’ sexuality, largely based on his writings inspired by his experience in 16th century Algiers and its atmosphere of sexual freedom. Decades later there is still no definitive consensus among historians. I have an open mind on the subject.

Even if the sexuality of Cervantes is open to debate, that of the astrophysicist who led the campaign to have Mu Area named after him is not. His name is Javier Armentia (b.1962), and he is the Director of the Pamplona Planetarium in northern Spain. He is also a leading populariser of science, a broadcaster, and a member of 500 Queer Scientists.

The campaign to name Mu Arae (which will also retain this scientific designation) after Cervantes was a joint venture between the Pamplona Planetarium, the Cervantes Institute, and the Spanish Astronomy Society. The campaign was called Estrella Cervantes.

Two events prompted the Estrella Cervantes campaign. First was the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) NameExoWorld project in 2015. This was aimed at encouraging public organisations to submit names for a selection of the many discovered exoplanets and their stars. The second was a double anniversary. The year 2015 was the 400th anniversary of the publication of the second part of Cervantes’ famous work “Don Quixote” (to give it its most common name), and it was also the approaching 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes in 1616.

The Estrella Cervantes project appealed for support and votes. On 15th December 2015 the campaign was successful and the IAU officially announced that the star Mu Arae was to be given the name Cervantes. But that’s not all. We’re also talking about exoplanets. So what did the project proposed for the names of the four known planets orbiting Cervantes? They proposed names of characters from Cervantes’ work. Consequently, the IAU also officially announced that the names Dulcinea, Roxinante, Quijote and Sancho were to be given to the four planets.

There are many more stars and exoplanets that have been named over the past eight years. Many more are being discovered. A few years ago I wrote about three lgbt+ astronomers who are searching for them. Who knows what other famous lgbt+ names will end up out there in the future.

(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World: 1) Love in the Stars

This time last year I began researching for the next edition of my “Around the World in 80 Gays” series. It was my intention to have it complete and ready for serialisation this year. However, the Beijing Winter Olympics and Birmingham Commonwealth Games slowed down that research because of an explosion of interest and inclusion in competing lgbt+ athletes at both events. Between them these games provided almost a hundred new names to research and catalogue.

By the end of last year I decided that I had done enough research on “80 Gays” to produce a shortened version, “(Not Quite) 80 Gays Around the World” Not every part of the serialisation has been written, and I am trying to expand it with more names as I go along, so I can’t say for sure how many names I will end up with.

The format will remain the same as in previous editions. Each individual will be numbered so that you (and I) can keep track of how far through the list of names we are. The first three names are of people we’ve encountered before on this blog and they are all connected by love relationships, which is quite appropriate considering yesterday was what is popularly and mistakenly celebrated as St. Valentine’s Day (see here to discover why it’s the wrong St. Valentine and the wrong date). So without further ado, here’s the new “Around the World in (Not Quite) 80 Gays.

1) The Roman Emperor Hadrian (76-138) is one of the more well-known of the gay emperors. Last year we celebrated the 1900th anniversary of his visit to Britain and the construction of the famous wall named after him.

It was on his continuing travels around his empire after laving Britain that Hadrian is believed to have first met the young 2) Antinuos (c.111-c.130) in Claudiopolis (now called Bolu, a city in northern Turkey). It is assumed that Antinous was born in the area.

If estimates of Antinous’s birth are correct he would have been no more than 12 years old when he and Hadrian met 1900 years ago in 123. Hadrian, who was in his 40s, was a big fan of Greek culture, so taking Antinous as a boy lover would not strike him as being questionable, unlike it would today. Even so, there were many critics of Hadrian’s lifestyle who thought the relationship was morally wrong. One of the theories concerning Antinous’s mysterious early death in the River Nile is based on this criticism, that it was a murder to ensure the relationship stopped for good. Other theories include accidental death, political assassination, ritual sacrifice, and suicide.

Hadrian’s grief at the death of his young lover, who was not yet 20 years old, was overwhelming. Back in 2011, in the first of my “Star Gayzing” series (was it really that long ago?) I mentioned some of the tributes Hadrian created for Antinous. In that article I concentrated on the constellation Hadrian “created” and how this was to show Antinous as a new 3) Ganymede.

Ganymede was also a youth who became the lover of an older man, in this case the god Zeus. He became a very popular subject in art during ancient and classical Greece, and also from the Renaissance through to the present day. Both Antinous and Ganymede were immortalised as constellations, with Ganymede becoming Aquarius. Both young men have been inspirations for gay men’s organisations and brotherhoods, and both were deified after their deaths by their lovers. Because of Ganymede’s greater and longer significance he has more statues and images than of Antinous. He remains more prominent in modern gay male culture.

There are many directions I could take from Ganymede in our “Not Quite 80 Gays” journey, but the one I have chosen is through literature, after all, the Greek myths are only known to us through ancient writings.

The modern publication which will take us further is called “An Asian Minor: The True Story of Ganymede” by an American author called 4) Felice Picano (b.1944), and we will learn more about him and his works in a few weeks’ time.

Star-Gayzing: Orion's Gender Switch

Its nearly ten years since I wrote my first “Star Gayzing” article lgbt connections in the constellations and I’ve only mentioned in passing what is, perhaps, the most famous constellation of them all, Orion. Lgbt connections in Orion come from its association with the ancient Sumerian myth about the origin of the seasons which I wrote about last year in “Springing Out of Winter”.

Over the centuries and across continents constellations change, not only in their orientation in the sky but also in the interpretation of the patterns they form. Most of the current interpretations derive from the ancient Babylonians and other cultures that originated in the same region of Iraq, and Orion is no exception.

An ancient star catalogue compiled by the Babylonians over 3,000 years ago saw Orion as “The True Shepherd of Anu” and was a representation of the Sumerian deity Ninshubur. Anu is the main god of the sky in the myths of all of the ancient civilisations that flourished in the region.

Ninshubur is one of the characters who featured in that myth about the seasons in “Springing Our of Winter”. She was the senior attendant to the goddess Inanna. She was also the messenger of the gods, a bit like the Greek Hermes or Roman Mercury. In the myth Inanna decides to visit her recently widowed sister, the Queen of the Underworld. Travelling to the Underworld was dangerous and Inanna asked her servant Ninshubur to ask the gods to rescue her if hadn’t returned in three days.

Three days later, with no sign of Inanna, Ninshubur goes to the gods. Only Enki responds and he creates two intersex beings who help to return Inanna to the surface.

So, we have the modern constellation Orion, representing a male hunter from Greek mythology, that had previously represented the female Sumerian deity Ninshubur. But that’s not the gender switch mentioned in this article’s title.

For hundreds of years Ninshubur was regarded as being female. Her official job title was “sukkal”, which was a kind of vizier. It is generally accepted that a sukkal is of the same gender as the deity she, or he, serves. As the sukkal of the goddess Inanna Ninshubur is female. However, during the 20th century BC a change began to take place.

The rise of the Akkadian civilisation that conquered the Sumerian empire led to the spread of Akkadian deities and their worship. Just as Ninshubur had also served as the messenger of the gods the Akkadian’s had Papsukkal, a male deity whose name obviously indicates his role as a sukkal. For several centuries these two messenger deities were regarded as being quite distinct from each other.

Somehow, during the Middle Babylonian era (c.1595 BC-c.1155 BC) Ninshubur and Papsukkal merged into one. This happens a lot in mythology and is termed syncretisation. It happens in more modern times as well. It’s a bit like the way Santa Claus and Father Christmas have, regrettably, become interchangeable names for the same character, even though they have very different characters with different origins and evolution. The gradual merging of Ninshubur and Papsukkal led to the former changing her gender altogether in an unconscious transgenderization (is that a word, or have I just made it up?).

Those Babylonian star catalogues I mentioned earlier depict Ninshubur/Papsukkal as a male figure in the same location as our modern Orion and they gave it the name “The True Shepherd of Anu”. By the time these catalogues were compiled the Akkadian civilisation had been conquered by the Babylonians who had never known of a female Ninshubur. To confuse matters even further the Sumerians had previously called the constellation Sipazianna, and the Akkadians had called it Sitaddalu.

If the gender switch isn’t queer enough there’s more queer associations with another representation of Ninshubur/Papsukkal. In some depictions of the night sky the deity is shown as a rooster. This bird is closely associated with Papsukkal in particular. In instances in which he isn’t represented by a rooster he is shown with a rooster following him. Back in January 2018 I wrote about instances of gender switchesin roosters and chickens. I’m not claiming that the ancient Babylonians ever associated roosters with the gender switch of Ninshubur/Papsukkal, or that they ever encountered gender switching roosters at all in their time, but knowing that this can happen gives and extra queer angle to the constellation.

Below are two diagrams. First is our modern Orion constellation. Below that is my interpretation of how the Babylonians depicted The True Shepherd of Anu. To the right of him is a representation of the constellation Taurus. Above him is the Babylonian representation of our modern constellation Gemini. Below him is his rooster, which is in the area of the modern constellation Lepus.

A Star-Gayzing Cenotaph

On this day in 1727 (in the Julian calendar that was in use in England at that time) Sir Isaac Newton died. Some of you, like myself, may have seen his tomb in Westminster Abbey, London, but if a French architect called Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) had got his way Newton would also be commemorated in a colossal 150 meter (492 feet) diameter spherical cenotaph in Paris. I’m glad I haven’t decided to publish this article tomorrow, April Fool’s Day, because you’d probably think it was a hoax.

First of all, let’s get Newton’s sexuality out of the way. In 2013 I wrote about Newton’s probable place on the lgbt spectrum (very apt description bearing in mind his work on the spectrum and rainbows). Very little information is available to say for sure how Newton would have identified his sexuality, assuming he ever thought about it. Thinking about it and labelling it seems to be a very modern thing to do. In 2013 I was content, and still am, to place him in our modern “queer” category without putting any other modern gender or sexuality label upon him. No doubt historians and scientists will be debating the subject for centuries.

As far as Newton’s scientific reputation is concerned there is no doubt. He was hailed as a champion of reason over superstition, which is ironic because he believed in astrology and witchcraft (not the modern Wiccan faith which didn’t exist in his day). After his death many architects and artists began designing tombs and monuments for him. Only Westminster Abbey was deemed appropriate for his official state tomb.

The Westminster tomb and the other un-built monuments emphasised Newton’s contribution to science, which was invariably illustrated with images of ancient Greek gods and religious symbolism. The colossal design by Étienne-Louis Boullée in 1784 did away with most of this un-scientific and superstitious decoration (except for thousands of cypress trees, symbols of mourning in the ancient Greek religion). The design used simple shapes, primarily the sphere. Below is one of Boullée’s drawings.

In the words of Dr. Patricia Ricci, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Department of Fine Art at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, “Its controversial theme, enormous size, and innovative design doomed the project from the start.” If it had been built it would have been the tallest building in the world at 150 meters (480 feet) tall, about 8 meters (26 feet) taller than the then record holder, Strasbourg cathedral.

The main feature of the cenotaph was the 150 meter sphere. Visitors would have entered the building at ground level and walk up a large staircase into a tunnel that led right into the centre of the structure. There visitors would be surrounded by the huge hollow interior. If visiting during the daytime people would see the whole surface of the sphere around them display an accurate portrayal of the stars and constellations. This was achieved by each star being a hole in the sphere where sunlight shone through. At night-time the interior was lit by a huge lantern inside an armillary sphere at the very centre.

You could say that this cenotaph was the largest planetarium ever designed, though no planets were represented within it and it was static. Speaking of planetaria, even though Boullée’s design never got off the page it inspired the design of a real modern-day planetarium, the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, part of the American Museum of Natural History. The Hayden Planetarium was built in 2000 and is 27 meters (87 feet) high.

The Hayden Planetarium

Even it we cannot say exactly if Sir Isaac Newton would identify himself on the lgbt spectrum, his unbuilt cenotaph has indirect links to modern lgbt astronomers thought the Hayden Planetarium. The Associate Director is Brian Abbott who does talks and presentations there. The planetarium currently has a writer-in-residence, the gay British playwright Stephen Laughton. He is working with Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer, Curator of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, a planet-hunter and discoverer of the first brown dwarf star. They are researching and collaborating in the development of a new play.

Finally, if Boullée had been able to build Newton’s cenotaph it may have been located where the Eiffel Tower is today. Below is an artist’s impression of how it would look if you could visit it.

I’m going to have a few days break for the Easter holidays. I’ll be back on April 10th when we’ll be looking at how a floral headdress inspired Napoleon and the art deco movement.

Star-Gayzing: The Drag Queen's Crown

Most of the myths and legends concerning the origins of the constellations come from ancient Greece. The majority of those I’ve covered on this blog have been Greek. Today we look at yet another one.

Some of the most famous and popular Greek gods and heroes – Zeus, Apollo, Herakles/Hercules, etc. – have several constellations associated with them. One of the others, whose name doesn’t often spring to mind immediately when asked to name the Greek gods, is Dionysos. He was the god of wine, vegetation, fertility, pleasure, mischief, parties – and drag queens.

I’ve mentioned Dionysos twice before in relation to the stars. First was his association with Virgo, in particular with the star Vindematrix. This name means “grape gatherer” and its rise in the sky signalled the start of the grape harvest. The other constellation with Dionysos connections is Taurus, or more specifically the group of stars within it called the Pleiades. These stars were named after the seven daughters of Atlas who, as I mentioned in the article about them, seem to have been the patron deities of drag queens. Briefly, without going through it all again, ancient astrologers believed that the Pleiades influenced the worshippers of Dionysos, turning them into what the ancient writer Manilius described as someone remarkably similar to a modern day drag queen. In mythology the Pleiades raised Dionysos and disguised him as a girl to protect him from the wrath of Hera, the ever-jealous wife of Dionysos’s father Zeus.

So, what about that drag queen’s crown, you may be asking? Well, the constellation of Corona Borealis is said to represent a crown given by Dionysos to one of his lovers. Not one of his male lovers but a female one called Princess Ariadne of Crete. This princess may be familiar to you from the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. In the main variation of the myth, the most familiar one, Theseus and Ariadne got married after the Minotaur was defeated and they returned to Athens, Theseus’ home. Apparently, the marriage wasn’t a very good one and legends vary on who left who (or is it who left whom? I’m never sure about my grammar). Whichever partner it was who deserted the other first, Ariadne ended up being courted by Dionysos who had always wanted to get her into bed with her. Again, the myths vary here. The crown was either given by Dionysos as a symbol of his love before they got married, or a gift to Ariadne on their wedding day.

There’s yet another version of the myth. Theseus had not entered the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur when Dionysos gave the crown to Ariadne. It shone so brightly that she gave it to Theseus for him to see his way in and out of the labyrinth. The most familiar version has Theseus following a thread which Ariadne was holding. On Theseus’ emergence from the labyrinth Ariadne threw the crown into the sky and it became the constellation.

Whichever version was told in ancient Greece the end result was always the same – the crown ended up as Corona Borealis.

While I’m on the subject of Dionysos there’s an old fable that was recounted by the famous story-teller Aesop over two and a half thousand years ago. In it Dionysos has a significant influence on the creation of gay men and lesbians.

The god given the responsibility of creating mankind was Prometheus. He used clay to form the original bodies, making hundreds of thousands of them, men and women. This took him many days. For some reason they were all created without sexual organs, and Aesop doesn’t tell us why. When Prometheus had finished he began to form the male and female sexual organs separately. Again this took many days. He began to attach the sex organs to the pre-formed people. This also took many more days and Prometheus was getting more tired by the minute.

At that moment Dionysos arrived to ask Prometheus out for a drink. Prometheus was reluctant at first because he had this job to finish, but Dionysos keep nagging him to leave the job till later. He needed a rest and a drink would refresh him. Prometheus relented and off the two gods went.

Now, we all know what sort of relaxation Dionysos was keen on – a good party with lots of alcohol. So Dionysos took Prometheus away and they had a jolly good night out filled with wine and nectar.

Eventually Prometheus decided it was time he got back to work. He staggered home in a drunken stupor and sat down. What was he doing, he probably thought? Oh yes, putting the genitals on the rest of those human figures he had made. Picking up the genitals, one by one he began attaching them to the figures.

It was only when he had finished that he realised he had mixed up that last lot of genitals. On all of the figures he had worked on since coming home from his night out with Dionysos he had put the wrong genitals on the wrong gender. The men had female genitals and the women had male genitals.

This is how Aesop explained the creation of men and women who display characteristics of the opposite gender – effeminate men and butch women. Effeminate men were female forms with male genitals, and butch women were male forms with female genitals. It was Aesop’s way of explaining gay men and lesbians.

So, if you’re ever asked if homosexuality is “nature or nurture” you can say neither. It’s the result of a drunken night out with a drag queen!

Star-Gayzing: A Celestial Swansong

Among the queer legends associated with the stars is one which is represented by two constellations in different parts of the sky. Being objects of the night sky it is ironic that they specifically represent a myth associated with the Sun.

In Greek mythology there are several deities associated with the Sun. Among the most popular was Apollo, who was called Apollo Helios in the 3rd century BC. It was as Apollo Helios that he was the lover of Prince Hyakinthos. The name Helios, though, was originally that of an older Sun god, one of the Titans.

It was Helios who was believed to have driven the Sun across the sky every day in his chariot. Like many of the Greek gods Helios had many children, both immortal and mortal. According to the most often recorded myth one of his mortal sons was called Phaethon whose mother was a sea nymph called Clymene.

Like many male Greek characters (though unlike his father Helios) Phaethon had a male lover, as was part of cultural tradition in ancient and classical Greece. Phaethon’s lover was King Kyknos of Liguria, more commonly known by his Latinised name of Cygnus. Most of the ancient writers don’t say explicitly that the two were lovers, though several do, and the king’s behaviour following Phaethon’s death is a strong indication that they were.

The name Cygnus will be familiar to both astronomers and ornithologists as the name of a constellation and the Latin name for a swan. There are several legends of how King Kyknos/Cygnus became a swan and how he became a constellation, and they are related to the most familiar myth about Phaethon. The following is a compilation of various versions of the story.

The youthful Phaethon was being taunted by his friends over his claim that Helios is his father. So, Phaethon went to his mother and asked her, and she confirmed his parentage. Phaethon then went to ask Helios himself and, again, confirmation was given.

The Sun god offered to grant any wish to his son as proof of his love for him. At that, Phaethon asked if he could drive the Sun chariot for one day. Helios was reluctant to grant this particular wish. He warned Phaethon that the fiery horses that pulled the chariot were difficult to control, even for the mighty god Zeus, so they would be barely responsive to a mortal. However, a promise is a promise, and Helios agreed to let his son drive the chariot across the sky the following day.

In the morning Phaethon took the reins of the Sun chariot and set off. He found that his father was right, the horses were difficult to control. Struggling with the reins Phaethon found the horses pulling the chariot high into the sky, causing great areas of frost to cover the Earth. Then the horses flew downwards towards the ground and Phaethon could not stop the Sun from scorching the Earth causing the massive expanse of the Sahara.

Helios and the pantheon of gods looked on, concerned for the safety of both Phaethon and the Earth and Zeus sent a thunderbolt to strike Phaethon dead. The youth fell from the chariot, which was immediately taken over by Helios, and Phaethon plummeted downwards and plunged into the waters of the River Eridanus. Eridanus was a mythical river believed by some to represent the Italian River Po. This ties in with the location of Liguria in northern Italy, the kingdom ruled over by Kyknos, through which the Po flows. Out of respect to Helios, Zeus placed the river in the night sky as the constellation which bears the same name.

The myth of Phaethon also influenced the naming of asteroid 3200. It was discovered in 1983 and is one of the Apollo asteroids, those which approach very close to Earth, sometimes crossing our orbit (there’s several of these every year, sometimes passing between the Earth and the Moon). Asteroid 3200 also has an orbit which takes it closer to the Sun than any other named asteroid, so the name Phaethon is very appropriate.

But what about his lover King Kyknos? He probably witnessed Phaethon struggling to control the Sun chariot and watched helpless as his body fall into the Eridanus. Kyknos raced to the river and wailed in despair. Some myths say he stayed there for years, and some say he was there for just a few days. However long it was, King Kyknos’ mourning for his lover eventually touched the hearts of the gods.

It was Apollo who decided to turn Kyknos into a swan. The swan was one of the animals sacred to Apollo. Again, the myths vary in the speed of the transformation. Some say it was instant, some say it took a few years, with Kyknos’s hair turning white with age and gradually transforming into swan’s feathers. As an extra tribute Zeus placed Kyknos in the sky as the constellation the Romans called Cygnus.

This is only one of several legends about the origin of the constellation Cygnus. Another is that it represents the swan into which Zeus transformed himself to pursue Leda and thereby become the father of Helen of Troy and Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins.

And the swansong? The myths say that as King Kyknos wailed in lament over his lost love and turned into a swan his voice changed and turned into a birdsong of great beauty. On his complete transformation into a swan he was placed in the sky, making his swan song the last sound he uttered. Since then a swansong has come to mean any great final performance given by a singer, actor or musician.

Star-Gayzing: Thrilled

In June I was contacted by Ruth Anderson, a staff writer at Thrillist, the culture and lifestyle website, about my Star-Gayzing articles. Ruth was writing an article for Thrillist about the relationship between the lgbt community and the cosmos. She was “absolutely fascinated” by my posts and asked if I could help with providing some insight into my relationship to astronomy. I was asked how I became interested in astronomy, what lgbt figures have influenced science, and what facts I would like to share.

What resulted was this article.

Whenever I’m asked to provide information I make sure I give more than may be required. It all depends on what the article’s writer needs and what their angle on the subject happens to be. Providing too much is better than providing too little is what I always say. I was delighted with the article and thank Ruth for the opportunity to tell people about myself.

What follows is the information I provided to Ruth, with a few additions. You can find many of the people mentioned below on this blog – put the name in the search box.

I was fortunate to be raised in a rural village where there was virtually no light pollution and my family often went outside in the winter evenings to look at the stars. I remember us all going out to look at Halley’s Comet when I came around last time. Unfortunately, I now live in Nottingham city centre and see very little, and didn’t get to see Comet NEOWISE this summer.

Stargazing with my family got me interested in the planets and from there I became interested in the asteroids. I remember copying out a list of asteroids from an encyclopedia when I was about 8. I was also fascinated by the stories and legends behind the planets and constellations and that got me interested in Greek and Roman mythology.

Most modern lgbt scientists work with many non-lgbt colleagues and their work is often a team effort. In the past scientists tended to work alone and, as with every other scientist that came up with a new theory, were often met with opposition or even ridicule from fellow scientists.

Perhaps the earliest example is Parmenides of Elea from the 5th century BC. He was the first to suggest that space was infinite and not the inside of a crystal sphere with stars attached to it. He also suggested that the Earth was spherical (Pythagoras is often claimed to be the first to suggest this but there’s no real evidence he did). Nobody took Parmenides seriously. Both of his theories were championed after his death by his former boy-lover Zeno of Elea.

Many centuries later Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), ex-priest, mathematician and spy (under the code-name Henri Fagot), expanded Parmenides theory by saying that in an infinite universe there’s an infinite number of planets inhabited by humans. Bruno was executed for heresy. Anti-Christian propaganda claims this is proof of the Church’s opposition to science and its homophobia, but Bruno wasn’t executed because of his science or sexuality. The Church accepted the existence of infinite space and planets. Bruno was executed because he said that these planets meant there was an infinite number of Christs, and the Church taught that there was only one. Effectively, the Church said that inhabitants of other planets are not human, which is just what scientists began to say 300 years after them.

The famous Copernicus didn’t believe in an infinite universe. He still believed that the stars were attached to spheres like everyone else. His theory of a Sun-centred solar system wasn’t new, he just used more maths to perfect the model, and he didn’t think scientists would be interested in reading about something they already knew. However, his protégé, Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574), a professor who made my life hell by developing trigonometry, disagreed. After being sentenced to exile from Leipzig for having sex with a male student Rheticus visited Copernicus. He persuaded Copernicus to publish his work, otherwise nobody would ever have heard of Copernicus.

There’s an interesting side-story to Copernicus. Someone once discussed Copernicus with the gay philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The person mocked the people of Copernicus’s time for believing that the Sun went around the Earth, to which Wittgenstein replied “Yes, but what would it have looked like if the Sun DID go round the Earth?” His point being that it would look exactly the same. What people, and scientists, believed before the discovery of the movements of the planets around the Sun didn’t make them stupid.

Below are some discoveries made by lgbt scientists in astronomy. They may not be well-known but they are significant in the field of astronomy.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and the nature of rainbows.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer discovered the first brown dwarf star.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Jessica Mink discovered the rings around the planet Uranus.

Dr. Martin Lo discovered the gravitational highways through the solar system that make the voyages of interplanetary probes and satellites quicker and shorter.

Sir Arthur Eddington proved Einstein’s theory that gravity bends light during a total eclipse in 1919.

Dr. Nergis Mavalvala proved Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves.

Dr. Franck Marchis and Dr. Mike Wong discovered the first double asteroid. Both have since discovered many other asteroids and even the first moons around asteroids.

Dr. James Pollack’s study of dust storms on Mars led to research into climate change on Earth. His team came up with the term “nuclear winter”.

Dr. Lisa Harvey Smith was the first lead scientist on the construction of the Square Kilometre Array telescope, which will be the largest Earth-bound international telescope array when completed.

Dr. Andrew Chael was one of the scientists who worked on the first photo of a black hole that was released last year.

Dr. Jeremy Bailin discovered that the warp of our Milky Way galaxy was caused by the gravitational pull of the Sagittarius Galaxy as it passed us billions of years ago.

Dr. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, and the first of only two lgbt astronauts. She went on two shuttle missions and led the investigations into the two shuttle disasters.

In 132 the Roman Emperor Hadrian created a constellation in memory of his dead lover Antinous. After 1786 a constellation was created in memory of the gay German emperor Frederick the Great. Both constellations have since been split up and their stars reassigned to other constellations.

Thousands of asteroids and planetary features throughout the solar system have been named after members of the lgbt community, from craters on Mercury to mountains on Venus, and from asteroids to moons of Jupiter.

Many openly lgbt astronomers are involved in outreach work, popularising astronomy, and working in public planetaria. There is also an increasing number of openly lgbt students who are registering on lgbt science and university “out lists”, and there are many lgbt astronomy professors.

Several meteorites were worshipped as gods, and their priests were often third gender, intersex or eunuch. Perhaps the most famous third gender priests were the Three Wise Men or Three Kings who followed a star from the east in the Christmas story.

Speaking of Christmas, a Swedish theologian and historian called Nils Vilhelm Ljungberg (1818-1872) was the first to take an astronomical approach to calculating the year Christ was born. Using ancient chronologies, records of eclipses, and star and planetary charts he came up with the date of 1st October 7 BC. It’s the date that is still often quoted today.