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Top Document: [sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9) Previous Document: B.09 What are the possessive adjectives for the planets? Next Document: B.11 Why does the Moon look so big when it's near the horizion? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge
Surprisingly, yes. This comes from the historical association of the
"planets" with gods and goddesses. In ancient times, the word
"planets" was from the Greek for "wanderers" and referred to objects
in the sky that were not fixed like the stars. Some of these
associations are clearer in English, especially if we compare with
names of Norse or Old English gods/goddesses, while others are clearer
from comparing French/Spanish with the Roman gods and goddesses. We
have:
Sun Moon Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn
Roman Luna Mars Mercury Jupiter Venus Saturn
Norse Tiw Woden Thor Freya
French dimanche lundi mardi mercredi jeudi vendredi samedi
Spanish domingo lunes martes miercoles jueves viernes sabado
Italian Domenica Lunedi Martedi Mercoledi Giovedi Venerdi Sabato
English Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
German Sonntag Montag Dienstag Mittwoch Donnerstag Freitag Samstag
Notes:
1. Sun: Dimanche and domingo are from the Latin for "Day of the Lord."
2. Saturn: Sabado is from "Sabbath."
3. German and English use Teutonic, not Scandinavian forms of the God
names, e.g., "Woden" in "Wednesday," not "Odin," which is the Norse
equivalent. The God of Tuesday was Tiw.
4. Russian numbers three days (Tuesday = 2nd, Thursday = 4th, and
Friday= 5th) and does not use God/Planet names for the rest.
In Sanskrit (an Indo-European language), we also find ("vaar" means day)
Sun Ravivaar Ravi Sunday
Moon Somvaar Som Monday
Mars Mangalvaar Mangal Tuesday
Mercury Budhvaar Budh Wednesday
Jupiter Brihaspativaar Brihaspati Thursday
Venus Shukravaar Shukr Friday
Saturn Shanivaar Shani Saturday
This association between planets and days of the week holds in at
least some non-European languages as well.
In Japanese the days Tuesday through Saturday (and the associated
planets) are named after the five Asian elements, rather than gods.
Japanese
days planets
Sun nichiyoubi hi (same kanji as nichi)
Moon getsuyoubi tsuki (same kanji as getsu)
Mars kayoubi kasei
Mercury suiyoubi suisei
Jupiter mokuyoubi mokusei
Venus kinyoubi kinsei
Saturn doyoubi dosei
For additional reading, particularly about Eastern day naming, see
<URL:http://www.cjvlang.com/Dow/>.
User Contributions:Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic:Top Document: [sci.astro] General (Astronomy Frequently Asked Questions) (2/9) Previous Document: B.09 What are the possessive adjectives for the planets? Next Document: B.11 Why does the Moon look so big when it's near the horizion? Part0 - Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Part6 - Part7 - Part8 - Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: jlazio@patriot.net
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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with stars, then every direction you looked would eventually end on
the surface of a star, and the whole sky would be as bright as the
surface of the Sun.
Why would anyone assume this? Certainly, we have directions where we look that are dark because something that does not emit light (is not a star) is between us and the light. A close example is in our own solar system. When we look at the Sun (a star) during a solar eclipse the Moon blocks the light. When we look at the inner planets of our solar system (Mercury and Venus) as they pass between us and the Sun, do we not get the same effect, i.e. in the direction of the planet we see no light from the Sun? Those planets simply look like dark spots on the Sun.
Olbers' paradox seems to assume that only stars exist in the universe, but what about the planets? Aren't there more planets than stars, thus more obstructions to light than sources of light?
What may be more interesting is why can we see certain stars seemingly continuously. Are there no planets or other obstructions between them and us? Or is the twinkle in stars just caused by the movement of obstructions across the path of light between the stars and us? I was always told the twinkle defines a star while the steady light reflected by our planets defines a planet. Is that because the planets of our solar system don't have the obstructions between Earth and them to cause a twinkle effect?
9-14-2024 KP