The Southern Cross or Crux is a constellation visible in the Southern Hemisphere.
Crux is easily visible from the southern hemisphere at practically any time of year. It is also visible near the horizon from tropical latitudes of the northern hemisphere for a few hours every night during the northern winter and spring. For instance, it is visible from Cancun or any other place at latitude 25° N or less at around 10 pm at the end of April.
Stars
Three of the five main Crux stars—Acrux, Mimosa, and Delta Crucis—are co-moving B-type members of the Scorpius-Centaurus Association, the nearest OB association to the Sun.They are among the highest-mass stellar members of the Lower Centaurus-Crux subgroup of the association, with ages of roughly 10 to 20 million years.
Markers
Since the southern sky lacks an easily visible pole star, Alpha and Gamma (known as Acrux and Gacrux respectively) are commonly used to mark south. Tracing a line from Gacrux to Acrux and extending it for approximately 4.5 times the distance between the 2 stars leads to a point close to the Southern Celestial Pole. Alternatively, if a line is constructed perpendicularly between Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, the point where the above mentioned line and this line intersect marks the Southern Celestial Pole. The two stars of Alpha and Beta Centauri are often referred to as the “Southern Pointers” or just “The Pointers”, allowing people to easily find the asterism of the Southern Cross or the constellation of Crux.
Letters and names
- α is named Acrux, a concatenation of “Alpha” and “Crux” and named by American Elijah Burritt in the 19th Century.
- β is named Mimosa
- γ is named Gacrux, a concatenation of “Gamma” and “Crux”.
- δ is the fourth brightest star, but it has no designated name.
- ε is inside the cross.
Deep sky objects
The Coalsack Nebula is the most prominent dark nebula in the skies, easily visible to the naked eye as a big dark patch in the southern Milky Way.
Another deep sky object within Crux is the Open Cluster NGC 4755, better known as the Jewel Box or Kappa Crucis, that was discovered by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1751–1752. It lies at a distance of 1.9±0.3 kiloparsecs or 6,900 light years and consists of approximately 100 stars spread across an area of about 20 square light-years.
The Southern Cross in popular culture
In the Victory At Sea suite, Richard Rodgers wrote “Beneath The Southern Cross” to depict the battleships in convoy and the lonliness of the sailors in the Southern Pacific during World War II. This tango melody is also “No Other Love Have I” in the musical “Me and Juliet” and a popular hit for Perry Como during the 1950s.
Cruzeiro Esporte Clube (Crux/Southern Cross Sports Club) is a first class football (soccer) club in Brazil.
The Nintendo game, StarTropics, for the NES features many references to and depictions of the Southern Cross.
The main character from the Namco game for the PlayStation Portable Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception who remains unnamed in the story but rather goes by his codename Gryphus-1 (as he is the leader of the Gryphus Squadron) is known as the “Southern Cross”, and his squadron’s emblem is an Andean Condor with the Southern Cross in its beak. Eugene Solano, his mission operator, is codenamed “Crux”.
Melbourne’s Southern Cross Hotel was built and named in 1962 and was one of the city’s foremost hotels during the decade. The hotel was demolished in 2005 and replaced by the similarly named office building known as Southern Cross Tower.
There is a town in the Western Australian wheatbelt approx 300 km east of Perth called Southern Cross.
“The Sign of the Southern Cross” is a Song by Black Sabbath written in 1981 which was sung by Ronnie James Dio.
The Argentinian singer Charly Garcia says that he is from the southern cross in the song “No voy en tren”.
“Southern Cross” is also a 1982 song by the classic rock group Crosby, Stills and Nash, written by Rick Curtis, Michael Curtis, and Stephen Stills. This song was also covered by Jimmy Buffett and is commonly played at his concerts.
Melbourne’s Spencer Street Station was rebuilt and renamed “Southern Cross Station” in 2006.
The 1974 Australian America’s Cup Challenger was named “Southern Cross” KA 4 representing the Royal Perth Yacht Club and was defeated 4-0 sailing off Newport Rhode Island by “Courageous” US26 sailing for the New York Yacht Club. Southern Cross became the trial horse for the 1977 Australian Challenger “Australia” KA 5 representing the Sun City Yacht Club that was defeated 4-0 sailing off Newport Rhode Island by Courageous US26 sailing for the New York Yacht Club.
The Argentine Air Force acrobatic display team is called Cruz del Sur, the Spanish for “Southern Cross”.
The opening lines of South African composer Koos du Plessis’ Christmas carol, ‘Somerkersfees’ (Summer Christmas) are:
- Welkom o stille nag van vrede (Welcome, o silent night of peace)
- Onder die suiderkruis (Beneath the Southern Cross)
There is a town called Suiderkruis (Southern Cross) in the Western Cape province of South Africa,
After identifying a need for a church for Afrikaans speakers living in Holland, a church was established in Leusden and is known as Suiderkruis Kerk. (Southern Cross Church)
The manga and anime series Fist of The North Star has one of its major fighting style, Nanto Seiken, with the Crux as its symbol.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia uses a stylized image of the Southern Cross as a corporate logo.
Zeitgeist: the Movie claims that the Sun can be in the vicinity of Crux: this is not possible because Crux is not a zodiac constellation.
“Southern Cross” is the Japanese title of the Orange Crew, a group of Gym Leaders who preside over the Orange Island archipelago’s league and are featured in the Pokémon anime. Furthermore, the locations of the Orange League Gyms align with the positions of the main stars in the Crux constellation.
In a Knights of Zodiac movie, there is a Eris’ ghost knight, represented by the Southern Cross.
The 1997 Rolf de Heer film, Epsilon, also known as Alien Visitor, an alien in female form descends to Earth from Epsilon in the Southern Cross, and inspires an Outback traveler to better his planet.
Flags and symbols that incorporate Crux
Crux, appearing on a number of flags and insignia
Beginning in the colonial age, Crux became used as a national symbol by several southern nations. The brightest stars of Crux appear on the flags of Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Samoa. They also appear on the flags of the Australian state of Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, as well as the flag of Magallanes Region of Chile, the flag of Londrina (Brazil) and several Argentine provincial flags and emblems (for example,, Tierra del Fuego and Santa Cruz). The flag of the Mercosur trading zone displays the four brightest stars. Crux also appears on the Brazilian coat of arms.
The five stars are also in the logo of the Brazilian football team Cruzeiro Esporte Clube. A stylized version of Crux appears on the Eureka Flag. The constellation was also used on the dark blue, shield-like patch worn by personnel of the U.S. Army’s Americal Division, which was organized in the Southern Hemisphere, on the island of New Caledonia, and also the blue diamond of the U.S. 1st Marine Division, which fought on the Southern Hemisphere islands of Guadalcanal and New Britain.