Lupus, the Wolf, is an ancient southern constellation beside Centaurus and Scorpius, a loose spray of blue-white stars set in the edge of the Milky Way.
At a glance
| stars in the figure | 9 |
|---|---|
| nearest star of the figure | Zeta Lupi, 117 light-years (36 pc) |
| farthest star of the figure | Delta Lupi, 884 light-years (271 pc) |
| depth | the farthest is 7.5 × farther than the nearest |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Lupus
Lupus is one of the constellations listed by Ptolemy, though the Greeks knew it simply as a wild beast, impaled on a pole held by the Centaur next door. Only later did it settle into a wolf. It lies in a rich stretch of sky between Centaurus and Scorpius, along the southern edge of the Milky Way, and its brightest star, Alpha Lupi, is a hot blue giant.
Many of its bright stars are young, massive and hot, members of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, the nearest region of recent massive-star formation to the Sun. Dark clouds still forming stars, the Lupus clouds, lie within its borders. It is also where SN 1006 appeared, the brightest stellar explosion in recorded history, whose expanding remnant is still detected today.
Lupus is a southern-hemisphere constellation, high in the evening sky in the southern autumn and winter. From mid-northern latitudes it only skims the southern horizon in the early summer, and from the far north it never rises at all.
What you see in the piece
Turn on CONSTELLATIONS (N), then leave the HUMAN EYE view (E) and fly out: the wolf comes apart at once. Its nearest drawn star sits several times closer than its farthest, so what reads as one shape from Earth is a scatter of stars at very different depths.
Questions
What is the closest star in Lupus?
Of the stars drawn in the figure, the nearest is Zeta Lupi, 117 light-years (36 pc); the farthest is Delta Lupi, 884 light-years (271 pc), so the farthest is 7.5 × farther than the nearest.
Where is Lupus in the sky?
Lupus lies in the southern sky between Centaurus and Scorpius, along the edge of the Milky Way. It is best seen from the southern hemisphere on autumn and winter evenings.