Draco and the law

Meteors of the annual Draconid shower may be noticed in the sky over about five October days, centered on a probable peak in the night of  October 7-8.

Here is the scene for an American location after sunset on the evening nearest before the predicted peak. See the end note about enlarging illustrations.

This shower gets its name because its radiant – the point or small area from which the meteors appear to fly out to any part of the sky – is in the triangle of stars forming the “head” of Draco, the “dragon.”

Dragons are presumably long reptiles, and Draco is a lengthy huge constellation – the 8th largest in area, as the boundaries on the celestial sphere are now officially defined. It winds around the celestial north pole, between Ursa Minor and Ursa Major (the Little and Big Dippers). So, as the night goes on and the sky appears to rotate around that pole, the Draconid radiant swings lower over our northern horizon till about 4:30 AM, then slightly upward before dawn.

This is not a major shower. The ZHR (zenithal hourly rate) is given as 5, which means the estimated number a single observer might count at the peak time under ideal conditions and with the radiant overhead; the number you see at your own location is liable to be even lower, or zero. Yet it could be dramatically higher. There have been Draconid storms, presumably caused by dense clumps in the stream of debris shed by the parent comet, in a few years, such as 1985, when the count reach 10,000 an hour.

There is more about the Draconids on page 135 of Astronomical Calendar 2024. A few meteors from another and even less abundant stream, the October Camelopardalids, might even be seen. Any streak that cannot be traced backward to the Dragon’s head, or fairly near it, is not a Draconid.

Language delights and curiosities department

Draconian is now a routine adjective for the harshly repressive laws proposed or imposed around the world by politicians in our time. Obviously, it derives from the fierceness of the fire-breathing dragon – or does it? Not quite. It derives from Draco, who around 600 BC codified in writing the laws of the city-state of Athens.

This Draco (the Greek word, spelled drakôn, is the active participle of the verb derkomai, “look, look out sharply, look fiercely, glare”) was probably not an individual but the name applied to a sort of constitutional committee.

Previously there had been traditional laws handed down orally.  Draco’s laws were to be enforced by courts of law, instead of by blood feuds between families. This was the first great step toward Athenian democracy, which became a model for the world’s democracies.

Ironic that draconian has come to mean almost the opposite. It’s a misnomer. Let’s say what we mean. Harsh, repressive. Brutal – only in English did brute come to be applied to the “lower animals.”

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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.

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