Dorado · Star Almanack

{% capture constellation_story %} ## A name that changes the animal Dorado has been called the Goldfish, the Swordfish, and the Dolphinfish. Those names do not identify one interchangeable species. The Spanish word behind the constellation is associated with the brightly colored dolphinfish, or mahi-mahi. Historical atlases also used Xiphias, meaning swordfish. The familiar English Goldfish can suggest a small freshwater animal quite unlike the marine subject intended. A dolphin is a mammal, and the dolphinfish is not. The neighboring alphabetical names Delphinus and Dorado therefore provide a useful caution: similar words can preserve different animals and different naming histories. ## A southern figure reaches European globes Dorado belongs to the new southern constellations associated with observations by Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman during Dutch voyages to the East Indies. Petrus Plancius incorporated the southern observations into the scheme on his globe of 1598. Johann Bayer's atlas of 1603 helped carry the figures into wider astronomical use. Their creation concerns European cartography. Southern communities already had their own relationships with these stars. Calling a region new describes the experience of the visiting mapmakers, not the beginning of human knowledge of the sky. The changing fish names show that publication did not freeze every detail immediately. A figure could remain in approximately the same celestial neighborhood while its label and illustration changed. ## A cloud that is another galaxy Dorado's most remarkable neighborhood includes much of the Large Magellanic Cloud, which extends across the modern boundary into Mensa. This is a galaxy, not an atmospheric cloud or a small patch within our own Milky Way. Its broad appearance from a dark southern location introduces a different scale from the individual stars used in the Fish's outline. The name Large Magellanic Cloud belongs to a European history of voyaging and naming. It should not imply that the object first became known when Europeans encountered it. A constellation boundary provides an address for parts of the view. It does not divide the galaxy physically between unrelated pieces. ## A stellar nursery in the Cloud Within the Large Magellanic Cloud lies the Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus. It is an enormous star-forming region containing luminous young stars and structured gas and dust. Its photographic nickname refers to the appearance of extended filaments. The Tarantula is not a second constellation hidden inside Dorado, but an object whose recorded structure prompted another comparison with an animal. A visit to the region can therefore move through several kinds of image: the Fish joining foreground stars, the cloudy appearance of an external galaxy, and the spiderlike structure of a nebula inside that galaxy. Keeping those scales distinct makes the view more intelligible. Dorado supplies the historical frame; the Large Magellanic Cloud and its nebulae supply physical systems whose relationships extend far beyond a stick figure. ## Sources - [Chandra X-ray Observatory — Dorado: navigators, globes, and changing fish names](https://chandra.si.edu/photo/constellations/dorado.html) - [SkyEye — Dorado: dolphinfish and Xiphias](https://www.obliquity.org/skyeye/88const/Dor.html) - [Linda Hall Library — Frederick de Houtman and the southern constellation group](https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/frederick-de-houtman/) - [NASA JPL — WISE Spies the Tarantula Nebula](https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia13118-wise-spies-the-tarantula-nebula/) - [ESA/Hubble — Tarantula Nebula and the Large Magellanic Cloud in Dorado and Mensa](https://esahubble.org/videos/potw2506a/) {% endcapture %}{{ constellation_story | markdownify }}