Thus spake my three year old daughter in the parking lot of Lone Star Steakhouse this evening. It took me a few seconds to recall this conversation from last week:
“Look, Mommy, a star!”
“Oh yeah - actually I think that’s Venus.”
whereupon I began laughing so hard I couldn’t make any sound, and just about gave myself a rupture. It was a good minute or two before I could explain to the other adults what she was talking about, and help her out with the vocab lesson.
Luckily I’m not easily embarrassed, but I am easily amused.
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your view) Uranus is only barely visible to the naked eye under very dark sky conditions. Parking lots need not apply.
Some people need both hands and a flashlight as well, and even then it’s dicey.
The funny thing is she does know the word penis (we’re pretty casual about nudity at home). I can’t imagine what she thought when (to her mind) I told her there was a giant, glowing penis in the sky.
Come to think of it, there’s probably a religion out there that believes/d just such a thing.
I’ve had the same thought, but an even better possibility is that Orion’s Belt is the penis, and an erect one at that.
I can’t give a cite, because one website that proposed this has disappeared, and the only other cite I know is a classical journal not stored online. But I wholeheartedly endorse it. Consider that the “belt” points right at the Pleiades, who Orion chases with lusty intent (and that Orion is a pretty randy character, who was charged with rape) and it fits together rather neatly.
I certainly had an easier time pointing out the Orion Nebula to my astronomy students when I said it was in Orion’s penis rather than in Orion’s sword…
