Word: cygnus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...first clear proof of the existence of a planet outside the solar system has now been accepted by astronomers. The proof consists of the mathematical evidence of the presence of a dark companion revolving around one of the stars in Cygnus (the Swan). The presence of this body was first reported last autumn by Swarthmore's Astronomer K. Aa. Strand...
Swarthmore's Strand picked up the new planet while measuring the orbits of a double star in the constellation Cygnus. He found that in their circlings around each other the two stars deviated from the expected path in regular "oscillations" which could be explained only by the gravitational pull of a third body on them (as the Earth's orbit around the Sun is affected by the Moon). By measuring these deviations, he determined that their unseen companion was a body with about 16 times the mass of Jupiter (largest solar planet), that it revolved around...
...constellation Leo becomes Russia -"one end of Leo is a perfect sickle and the other end is much more like a hammer than any part of a lion." Lenin, Stalin and Timoshenko are brightly starred, with "room still for such names as Sevastopol and Smolensk and Stalingrad." China gets Cygnus (Chiang Kai-shek for Deneb, Confucius for Albireo, etc.). Germany and Japan get nary a one, but Hitler and Mussolini are placed in the constellation Draco (the Snake) renamed The Tyrants. Sirius, brightest star in the sky, falls in the constellation of South Africa and is called Smuts. There...