Space is fascinating. Stars just as much. Matariki especially.

Matariki is always special and this year it is particularly so.

This year - 2022 - marks o˜ cial recognition for the ÿ rst time of Matariki with a designated public holiday on Friday 24 June. It celebrates the reappearance of the constellation of the stars by having a day dedicated to Remembrance and Rejuvenation. The pre-dawn rising of Matariki in the midwinter sky marks the changing of the seasons and the beginning of the M˛ori New Year. Historically, Matariki was celebrated during the last quarter of the moon of the lunar month Pipiri (around June); the ceremony involved viewing the individual stars for forecasts of the year to come, mourning the deceased of the past year, and making an o˝ ering of food to replenish the stars.

Ah, the night sky! There’s something magical about gazing into the darknessand looking at the stars. Mankind has had a relationship with the stars since time began. Philosophers have marvelled over their existence. Gardeners have planted by them, mariners have sailed by them and civilisations have risen and fallen, based on their entire existence, and cultural rituals.

Egyptians aligned their pyramids and temples towards the north because they believed their pharaohs became stars in the northern sky after they died. The ancient Maya were avid astronomers, recording and interpreting every aspect of the sky. They believed that the will and actions of the Gods could be read in the stars, moon, and planets. Many of their prominent buildings were built with astronomy in mind.

One of artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci’s most well-known astronomical discoveries resulted from his gazing at the moon and stars. He was fascinated that even during crescent and new moon phases, the remainder of the moon could still be faintly seen. He pieced together that this was due to sunlight hitting the Earth and re˜ ecting on to the moon, giving it a noticeable glow, which he entitled ‘Earth shine’, others calling it the Da Vinci Glow.

Then there were the Wise Men who followed the stars to the birth of Jesus Christ and in today’s world, companies like Speights have leveraged such legends, and placed stars on their beer branding hoping that advertising slogans like “wise men have always followed the stars” will help them to sell more beer. In 1953, ÿ ve Japanese car companies merged to form Fuji Heavy Industries and adopted a cluster of stars as its o˛ cial logo. This cluster of stars is better known by the Greek name ‘Pleiades’ which is part of the Taurus constellation.

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There are many interesting facts and stories about stars (whet˜):

 Matariki is one of the nearest star clusters to Earth – it’s just 444.2 light years away. The distance to Matariki is used by astronomers as a marker to help calculate distances to other stars.

 Did you know the nearest star to our planet is called Alpha Centauri? It’s about 4.3 light years from earth and it takes about four years for the light from this star to reach us. Which means that here on earth we’re seeing this star today, as it appeared four years ago!

 Most stars that you see are from 10 to 1000 light years away. A star that you’re seeing at night might not exist anymore.

 The sun is a star and scientists believe it will live for about 10 billion years. But don’t worry it’s not going to stop shining any time soon. It’s thought to be 4.6 billion years old, so it still has plenty of happy sun rays to beam down

What about shooting stars? If you see a ‘star’ that’s moving across the sky, it’s likely to be a satellite orbiting the earth. Most satellites orbit 36,000km above the earth in a geosynchronous state, meaning they appear almost stationary, because they move in line with the earth’s rotation. Those in a slightly deeper orbit can have their gravitational pull from earth cancelled out by gravity from the sun and need constant adjustments to stay in space. If, however you do indeed see a shooting star, it’s not actually a star at all. These are pieces of rock – small meteors that move so fast they heat up and glow, dying out as they hit the earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate. Any pieces that survive re-entry to earth are called meteorites.

 Stars shine because they are extremely hot (which is why ÿ re give o° light). The source of their energy is nuclear reactions going on deep inside the star. In most stars, like our sun, hydrogen is being converted into helium, a process which gives o° energy that heats the star.

 Stars don’t twinkle. Stars appear to twinkle or ‘scintillate’, especially when they are near the horizon. One star, Sirius, twinkles, sparkles, and ˛ ashes so much sometimes that people actually report it as a UFO. But in fact, the twinkling is not a property of the stars, but of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere.

 Black holes don’t suck. Many people describe black holes as “sucking” in everything around them. It is

9 Cluster Is Made

The Matariki star cluster is made up of nine stars.

They are: Matariki, P˙hutukawa, Waitˆ, Wait˝, Waipuna-˝-rangi, Tupu˝nuku, Tupu˝rangi, Ururangi, and Hiwa-i-terangi. Traditionally, M˝ori ancestors did not just look at the constellation as a whole, but rather viewed each star individually, gaining an insight into the year ahead.

Star clusters are groups of stars that are connected – held together – by gravity. A constellation is a group of stars that appear to be close together in an imaginary outline or pattern, but they may actually be far apart. M˝hutonga, also known as the Southern Cross or Crux, is an example of a constellation.

The stars (whetˇ) in Matariki are