Look...
Up in the Sky...
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Constellation in Celebration of Valentine's Day
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You know how to spot the Big Dipper... maybe even the Little Dipper... but have you ever gazed up into a cloudless, twinkling sky and seen a great big heart?
Just in time for Valentine’s Day 2001, astronomers at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston plotted a new constellation of stars that resembles the shape of a heart. Why? I'm glad you asked.
The Planetarium received a
request to search the cosmos for a heart-shaped star pattern from the New
England Confectionery Company (NECCO), makers of Sweethearts Conversation
Hearts. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company has been a New England institution since 1847, and they've been making America's best-selling
Valentine's Day treat since 1902. The company
sells more than 8 billion candy conversation hearts every year. That
seems like a lot, but in comparison to the number of stars in our Milky Way
Galaxy--500 billion--it's just snack food.
For about 10 years, all of the clever sayings on Sweethearts Conversation Hearts were the work of one man, Walter Marshall. With his retirement in 2000, NECCO turned to Arthur Clarke's 2001 - A Space Odyssey for inspiration for the new 2001 sayings, which included: LOVE 2001, ODYSSEY, MOON BEAM, URA STAR, VENUS, STAR DUST and RISING STAR.
They also turned to the Charles Hayden Planetarium for assistance in spreading the theme of "Universal Love." The Heart Constellation star chart is available online. The Heart Constellation contains stars from the constellations of Orion, the hunter; Canis Major, the Big Dog; Canis Minor, the Little Dog; and Gemini, the Twins. At the heart’s point is Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.
"Constellations are like a giant connect-the-dots game," said Robin Symonds, director of the
Charles Hayden Planetarium, in a press release. "There are hundreds of ways to form images like the heart
constellation we plotted. We hope that our effort will encourage more people to look at the night
sky and design constellations of their own."
The Museum of Science and the Planetarium are open daily.
For show times and tickets, call (617)
723-2500.
While NECCO headquarters is here in New England,
unfortunately, it is not open for tours.
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All photos by Kim Knox Beckius, copyright 1999, licensed to About.com, Inc.
