The star Canopus appears to be in a physical relation to the Sun, modulating the precession of the terrestrial equinox and other long term solar system rhythms. Although not a binary, Canopus seems to explain the Vedic theory that precession is caused by a binary star.

Canopus is 310 light years away and is 15,000 times more luminous than the Sun and the most intrinsically bright star within approximately 700 light years. Canopus is the brightest object for everything shown in this atlas of the universe within 250 light years, and is located just outside this horizon. At galactic scale of 100,000 light years, Canopus is 1/300th of the galactic diameter away, and is the biggest object within 1/150th of the galaxy.

Canopus is on the Sun’s rotational axis, very close to the South Celestial Pole. This diagram of precession of the South Polar stars shows how Canopus moves towards and away from the South Celestial Pole on an apparent path matching the precession period of 25765 years.

The wobble of precession, at the current rate, has happened about 175,000 times since the dawn of the solar system. It seems likely that Canopus has remained very close to the earth’s and the sun’s South Pole, and so to the South Pole of the whole solar system, for a very long time.

I do not know how stable the Canopus-Sol relation may have been over the life of the galaxy, but I suspect that Canopus and Sol have been together, perhaps with other stars in the region as shown at the 250LY atlas, for all of the five billion years since Sol came into being.

The size and location of Canopus justifies exploration of how it may be in some form of binary relation with stars around it including our solar system. If we imagine the sun in relation to Canopus, we see the direction of the solar axis is pointed straight at this whopper, 15,000 times as bright. I wonder if other nearby stars may have their axis pointed at Canopus too?

Seeing Canopus in this sense as a binary for the sun makes sense against the precession pattern. Precession is directly caused by luni-solar torque. However, it is legitimate to look at how precession is in harmonic resonance to larger gravitational relationships. A good example is the direct relation between the precession period and the Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune return cycle of 178.9 years, which is precisely 1/144th of the precession period, and one twelfth of the Zodiacal Age of 2147 years. These main bodies of the solar system, with the earth, exhibit the 'pulse of the sun' shown in the barycentre cardiograph. Looking at Canopus as the modulator of time can start to explain such mysterious gravitational relationships. Canopus looks to be part of an even bigger galactic gravitational relationship that is in a harmonic resonance with the solar system.

How I imagine this relation is that the solar system is effectively a satellite of Canopus. It is almost as though the earth’s axial wobble looks like a gyroscopic stabiliser for the overall Sun-Canopus relation, not in the aeronautic sense, but as part of the larger gravitational patterns of the galaxy.

This hypothesis explains some questions in archaeo-astronomy. Canopus is also known as Alpha Carinae and Agastya, and is the first star of the old Greek constellation Argo Navis, the Judeo-Christian Noah’s Ark and the Egyptian Barque of Osiris. I discussed its interesting constellational history at Argo. The ideas here help to explain a number of the issues raised by Santillana and von Dechend in Hamlet’s Mill, their study of how astronomy is embedded in ancient mythology. Their work can be expanded to also consider the Vedic Yuga, Jason and the Argonauts, the Norse theory of Yggdrasil the World Tree, and key ideas in the Bible.

The movement of Canopus towards and away from the South Celestial Pole is central to the Vedic theory of the Yuga, a 24,000 year cycle which reached its imagined low point in 500 AD. The moment on the precession cycle when Canopus is furthest from the Pole was about 1000AD, in rough alignment with the Vedic hypothesis of ascending Yuga cycle towards Canopus and descending Yuga cycle away from Canopus. The Vedic Golden Age corresponds to the period when the South Celestial Pole is close to Canopus. This explains why the Vedic astronomers insist on a binary system as the basis of precession, not that precession is physically caused by the binary relation with Canopus, but that precession is part of a larger harmonic gravitational resonance that characterises the entire solar system in its relation with Canopus.

I made a diagram of the Yuga and the Age showing how the movement of Canopus fits into the mythology of the Golden Age and the Ages of the Zodiac.

The South Polar Star Chart shows the Large Magellanic Cloud is very close to the spot around which the Pole precesses. Hence the Sun-Canopus relationship may be part of an even bigger galactic structure. I would be interested to find out how the Milky Way and the Magellanic Cloud interact, and whether the Cloud has remained at a southerly position for the Sun and Canopus in their orbit together around the galaxy.

A Vedic commentator explores how precession has been embedded in Indian observation of Canopus:
Robert Tulip

Uh...what?

Do you have any idea how many stars are between here and there? Any gravitational effects Sol and Canopus have on each other, or effects Canopus has on Earth, are completely lost in the noise. It's current location relative to Earth's rotational axis is pure coincidence.

Your ramblings about "harmonic resonance" are completely indecipherable. As far as I can tell, it's a mishmash of a few popular buzzwords and random references to religious texts, with a bit of numerology thrown in. Do you have any actual support for the idea? For that matter, can you clearly state what that idea is?

I would really prefer that the religious references were kept out of this as the rules here say.

What do you mean by "on the Sun's rotational axis"? Looking at the diagrams you provide, it would seem that Canopus is more than ten degrees from the Sun's axis, unless I misunderstand what is being represented. Checking it out a little further, it looks closer to 15 degrees.

Any star is going to move towards and away from the South Celestial Pole with a period of 25765 years, because that is the period of the movement of the South Celestial Pole, right?

And the Sirius Research Group might have a problem with this theory! They think the culprit is Sirius, not Canopus.

I was thinking exactly the same, but kept looking for something that I must have missed in Robert's post.

Got any data, besides your suspicion, to back that claim up?

Space.com: The Crazy Cosmos: Stars Near Sun are Wild & Wayward:

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Any gravitational perturbation of Earth's spin precession or orbital motion around the Sun will be inversely proportional to the cube of the distance to the perturbing object, and proportional to the mass of the object. For a nearby star such as Alpha Centauri, my order of magnitude estimate is about 10^-11 times that of Jupiter. For a distant star like Canopus, knock it down another factor of some tens of thousands, despite the greater mass. I think we can safely disregard these effects as vanishingly small.

A superluminous star like Canopus will last only about 10 million years or so. It will not last even one galactic orbital period, let alone the 50 or so the Sun will enjoy.

Even during its short lifetime, the observed proper motion of Canopus, though small, will carry it many degrees from its present position relative to the Sun.

Robert Tulip's OP looks like the product of a vivid imagination, nothing more. It would be right at home with Pythagoras and his merry band of numerologists a couple of millenia ago, long before any dynamic theory of stellar and planetary mechanics had been developed.

Are you sirius? pete

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Thanks for replies.

Perhaps I should have put this in Q&A with a question as to whether there is any astrophysical possibility of a causal relation between Canopus and the precession. Clearly the answer is no. I already raised this to some extent in a Q&A thread on Binary Sun Theory, but the status of Canopus was niggling at me due to its proximity to the Pole and close match to the Yuga cycle.

The against-the-mainstream idea embedded in this material is primarily that the Great Year of Precession of the Equinox provides a long term structure for the nature of terrestrial time, as depicted at the linked diagram of the Yuga and the Age (below). I have raised earlier versions of this before, and worked out that claims in this area are more about an imaginative matching between terrestrial events and the stars than a demonstrable scientific case, although there is more science in it than the mainstream credits.

The movement of Canopus towards and away from the Pole so closely matches the old Vedic idea of ascending and descending ages that I wanted to explore if there could be any physical basis. Clearly, correlation is not causation, but some correlations have an interesting shape. I don't know if this linkage between Canopus and the Yuga has been noted before in modern times, although I am sure it must have been known in ancient India.



I read an essay at the Sirius Research Project kindly linked by hhEb09'1 and it made the bizarre claim that the date of the heliacal rising of Sirius has not precessed due to binary relation between Sirius and the sun. It seems pointless to me to make such claims and then refuse scientific peer review, as the advocates can only become laughing stocks. The tragedy is that this essay also makes some worthwhile comments about Egyptian thought, but these are inevitably lost due to the advocacy of a false astronomy.

My view is that there are astronomical mysteries embedded in the Great Year, but we will not find them unless the speculative imagination is tethered by evidence from observation. As Hornblower noted, my aim is primarily an imaginative attempt to find some sense in the idea of a binary star governing precession. I posted it here to get a reality check and help me confine any claims to what is possible.

I remain of the view that Canopus is a much better candidate as a perceived governor of precession than Sirius just from the imaginative outlook, due to the close orbit of Canopus around the Pole. Clearly this 'governing' of precession by Canopus is solely an artifact given the distances and relative motions. However, it raises questions for archaeo-astronomy, especially how ancient Egypt and India had more detailed astronomical knowledge than is now acknowledged, and how Canopus could have had a central role in their cosmology of the Great Year.

Further on the archaeoastronomy of mythology, the story of Jason and the Argonauts seems to embed some interesting ideas about Canopus, which is not visible north of Athens. The Argonautica of Apollonius discusses the loss of the prow ornament of Argo as it enters the Black Sea, a story which seems to symbolise how Canopus was the main star at the prow of Argo as viewed from Egypt but was mostly invisible from Greece. In my imaginative reconstruction, the Golden Fleece itself is the star Canopus, and the protecting dragon is the constellation Scorpio. There may be a northern correlate with Draco. The psychological underpinning is that the capture of the Golden Fleece symbolises the link to the Golden Age, which in the Hindu myth of the Yuga was the ancient time when Canopus was close to the Pole.

Robert, the post by Hornblower above says it all. Take heed of it.

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Yes

Considering that Polaris is only 100 Ly farther away, and only one solar mass lighter, and is almost dead on the north celestial pole, why is Canopus getting all the press?

Well, maybe Robert Tulip is a big Doris Lessing fan?

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You can't be Sirius! That was the first thing I thought when I saw the OP I've read the 3rd, and wonder if the other 4 are as enjoyable.

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I have only read book 4, before I went to the Philip Glass opera about it.
Started book 1, but never finished it, because at the time I was not in the mood, but have a very nice set of the books, so I got to read them.

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善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
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“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

As it happens I do really like Doris Lessing, but have only read The Golden Notebook, The Grass is Singing, and This Was the Old Chief's Country, and have never managed to read any of her science fiction about Canopus in Argos.

Thank you for this clear explanation Hornblower. As I noted above I should not have let my enthusiasm get the better of me in postulating an impossible hypothesis. After my blooper in the OP you might not be interested, but I want to argue that the match between Canopus and the precession is not just numerology. There are long term cycles of the solar system, and the distance from Canopus to the Pole modulates these cycles.
The equivalent star for the North Celestial Pole is Vega, which like Canopus in the South is a very bright star that was at the Pole about 12,000 BC. At the time Indian astronomy calls the golden age, earth’s axis points to both Canopus and Vega. Matching the Golden Fleece myth of Jason and the Argonauts, Canopus and Vega are both ‘guarded’ by dragons – Scorpio and Draco – in their relation to precession of the poles, indicating how observation of the stars is embedded in mythology. As ever, this field of study is beset by unscientific claims. One interesting commentary is at http://www.sirbacon.org/mham.htm

Leaving aside the imaginative ideas about galactic scale gravitational harmonics, the diagram of the South Celestial Pole shows Canopus is closest to the pole when the March equinox point is in Virgo, around 12, 000BC = 14,000 AD, and furthest from the pole when the equinox point is in Pisces, around 500 to 1000 AD. Hence Canopus is a clear marker of the precession, but due to its southerly position, unseen to northern astronomers, and the slow period of the precession cycle, this long term pattern was only seen in India, and in the corresponding northern myths of the Finnish Kalevala in which the Sampo is the cosmic mill knocked off its axis.

The overlay of the Vedic Yuga and the Zodiacal Ages, indicated by the year numbers in the outer circle of my diagram above, provides two matching ways to measure the precession. The Yuga is based on the positions of Canopus and Vega, and its ascending and descending traditional interpretation matches the Ages based on the western zodiac signs. Scientifically, both Yuga and Age may seem arbitrary, but culturally both have a comparable claim about the structure of terrestrial time. My interest is to see how these mythological ideas could be grounded in real cyclic patterns.

The underlying ATM idea here is that the slow movement of the sun backwards through the signs of the zodiac has a cyclic inverse relation to the pattern of the sun’s annual path. This relation is modulated by Canopus and Vega as markers, but physically caused by the long term stability of earth’s gyroscopic wobble. The mainstream view is that there is no such material relation between the Great Year and the annual rhythm.

To illustrate the possible nature of such a relation, in the picture above I have denoted the zodiac ages by the themes which astrology claims for each of the signs. The premise is that the twelve themes of the zodiac signs describe the early, mid and late phases of the four seasons, as marked by the four cardinal points of the equinoxes and solstices and the derived mutable and fixed points.

Any such cyclic effect must be extremely weak, given the lack of statistical corroboration, but at least it is permanent and unchanging by human standards, built in to the original structure of life on earth. The twelve themes of the zodiac signs match the themes of the natural year from spring to winter. These themes, in order, are: be, have, think, feel, will, analyse, balance, desire, see, use, know, believe. These themes flow into each other in a logical emergent order which matches the annual cycle of the northern seasons. If the precession causes a deep slow rhythm in the long term complex systems of the earth, it is reasonable to postulate that the twelve ages as shown incorporate the same natural rhythm encoded in the annual cycle, in reverse.

The twelve ages of the zodiac, starting from belief (Pisces) through knowledge (Aquarius), around to having (Taurus) and being (Aries), can readily be interpreted against the ascending and descending motif of the Yuga. This effect is too weak for easy scientific detection, and can only be seen in the weak traces left in mythology, a cultural artefact which embeds the efforts of people over the millennia to ponder the stars.

Postulating a directionality to this cycle, we can ask if the Age periods match the sign periods. Indeed, there is a close match between the Yuga cosmology of the movement of Canopus and Vega towards and away from the Pole as ascending and descending phases, and the Zodiac Age themes, which ascend backwards through the signs of winter and autumn and descend through the signs of summer and spring.

Matching this zodiac precession cycle against the back and forth of Canopus against the Pole need only be a possible interpretation to justify an against-the-mainstream argument. The effect is too weak to be easily measurable, so the question is whether it is mathematically coherent.

The annual cycle of the seasons and the diurnal cycle of day and night are the main temporal structures for the earth. The seasons have been stable for as long as the earth has had a 23° tilt. Considering the earth as a gyroscopic satellite of the sun, it is reasonable to consider the pulse of this wobble as embedded in life.

The hypothesis then arises of a harmonic resonance between the apparent forward annual motion and the backward precessional motions of the sun. This hypothesis can be depicted by denoting the ages by themes as shown. I have no way to prove that these themes are meaningful except by reference to mythology, showing how this cosmology provides a way to interpret the evolution of culture, and by elaboration of a possible scientific-mathematical model, as in the diagram above.

Let me just offer a few sort of universalistic critiques. On this first point, I don't think that all languages necessarily have those distinctions, so it's not a universal human phenomenon. Japanese does not have native words for "will" or "analyze" or "believe." They are all borrowed from Chinese. So those are probably not universal concepts.

Here again, the four seasons of the temperate zones are not universal human phenomena either. There are places on earth where you have the rainy seasons and the little dry season and big dry season.

And here, I think you are talking about cycles, but I think the evolution of culture is much too complicated to be able to fit into a pattern. While it's true that there are events that stand out, often it's biased. In the West, people often see the Roman empire as a big deal, but don't look too carefully at what was happening on the Indian subcontinent or in China, which in terms of population were just as important. So while I applaud the effort, I think it is probably a very difficult quest.

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Thanks Jens. What is universal is the cycle of the year and the great year. These cycles contain a linked emergent logic, against which the symbolic descriptions in various cultures can be assessed and compared. The fact that the Japanese needed to borrow these concepts shows their universality.


A good example where this mythology is universalised is in the Bible. Rev 21.19, according to main orthodox commentaries, says the twelve foundation stones of the holy city symbolise the twelve signs of the zodiac in reverse, from Pisces to Aries. This is a clear, though coded, reference to the position of the sun over the ages of precession of the equinox. This knowledge has been heavily repressed due to its naturalistic links. Living in Australia, where the seasons are reversed, I feel like an outsider looking at the dominant planetary cycles of the north. I agree with you that other climatic patterns are important. However, considering the evolution of human culture, the northern temperate climate is dominant, and the temperate cycles have a good claim to be considered the main ones.

It is noteworthy that, for example, the 'Age of Pisces' when the sun precessed through the constellation Pisces at the March equinox is equally the Age of Virgo, as the September equinox has precessed through the constellation Virgo. A symbolic rendering of this Pisces-Virgo polarity is in the Biblical parable of the loaves and fishes. Bread is the symbol of Virgo and fish is the symbol of Pisces. Presented as a main theme as the equinox was precessing into Pisces and Virgo, the loaves and fishes can be interpreted as symbols of the universal abundance available from cosmic wisdom.My argument shows a continuity between Indian and Western thought, with the Vedic Yuga cycles matching the western Great Year. This continuity derives from common observation. I agree with you that evolution of culture is complicated, and it is very hard to see long term trends. However, zooming in to the present, my diagram above suggests the planet is now nearing the end of an age dominated by belief, and over the next centuries will move into an age dominated by knowledge. This seems to me to have an elegant match to main cultural and political trends, while also presenting a systematic interpretation with capacity to bridge diverse ways of thought.

It could well provide a framework for science fiction, thinking of the next 2150 years as the Age of Knowledge, followed by Ages of Use and Vision, as a period of planetary stability coming out of the present conflict between belief and knowledge. This to some extent matches what Doris Lessing presents in her Canopus in Argos series.

...and peace will guide the planets, and love will fill the stars....

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And what happens when we reach the apex of the ascending stage? Do we repeat the descending stage again?

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The earth has wobbled on and off the Canopus-Vega axis forty times in the last million years. On the axis is seen as the Golden Age and off the axis is seen as the Iron Age in Vedic thought. For the 12882 years when we are heading towards this axis we ascend and for the 12882 years when we head away from this axis we descend.

The precession cycle matches the annual path of ascent and descent of the seasons in reverse. The Great Year ascends through the northern winter and autumn signs, while the northern earth season is descending, and descends througn the summer and spring signs, while the annual northern cycle is ascending. This matches the cycle of life, with equinoxes at apex and nadir, and follows one season after the cycle of light, with solstices at apex and nadir.

Regarding the astrophysics of this material, I earlier posted comments at Precessional Cosmology suggesting a scientific experiment to model the twelve signs as ripples caused by regular drops of water on the four cardinal points of a round bucket of wet sand. I still haven't managed to do this experiment, but suggest it would be interesting to help visualise the claims.

And how does the differences in the proper motions of Vega and Canopus effect your claims?

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Diagram of the precession over the last 2.5 million years shows the slow pace of this cycle over the evolution of humanity. The period of this graph is 1% of the sun's galactic orbit period of 220 million years but a long time for the proper motion of Canopus and Vega. They are now positioned at opposite points on the earth's axis. Vega has been within nine degrees of its current location for the last 100,000 years. Canopus has proper motion of RA: 19.99 mas/yr Dec.: 23.67 mas/yr. I don't know how to convert that into years per degree of arc as explained below for Vega.

On Vega, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega#Kinematics states

The difference in the proper motion of Vega and Canopus does not affect my claims, except that the lifespan of the notional Vega-Canopus axis is much less than the one million year figure I mentioned. These stars are temporary markers for a terrestrial cycle.

Concerning post #26

This is all fine and good, but does not answer my question. Let me re-phrase it. What happens to your claims when the Vega-Canopus axis is no longer related to the Earth's axis?

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DETAILS: Where the Devil waits to ensnare the unprepared!
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Sorry, I edited my last post, to add the final comment - Vega and Canopus will stay where they are in our sky for probably tens of thousands of years. My claim is that the ascending-descending Vedic motif which now corresponds to these stars is in fact the deep discernment of a cycle which is purely terrestrial in cause, through lunisolar precession, as a harmonic resonant reflection of the annual cycle of the seasons. So over millions of years the stars will wander where they will, but the gyroscopic wobble of our planet will continue unperturbed.

So, when all is said and done and after inconveniencing far more electrons than necessary, what your basically saying is that astrology works?

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He evidently thinks a star hundreds of light years away and on the far side of the planet from me has influenced basic elements of my personality...I'm not sure what else you'd call it. Though I suspect Robert would mumble something about "harmonic resonance" and wave his hands vigorously...

Robert Tulip, if that's not what you intend, you're doing an absolutely terrible job of explaining your idea, because it really looks like nothing more than a bunch of superstitious nonsense and meaningless mumbo-jumbo.

What is the resonant system? At what modes does it resonate, what are the driving forces, and why single out Canopus when there are many much closer stars as well as other bodies in the solar system with far stronger effects? What possible causal effect could this have to produce the results you claim?

For that matter, what, specifically, are those claimed results? I've seen nothing but extraordinarily vague and long winded expressions that use many words but say nothing. Robert, what on Earth are you talking about?