It's early on Sunday, December 3, 1854 at
Ballarat, Victoria. A flag depicting the Southern Cross in the night-sky has
been hastily sewn together and now flutters in the breeze while miners quietly shelter
behind a stockade on the Eureka gold diggings. Soon 22 miners and 6 troopers
will die when government troops attack and disband the protest over unreasonable
mining licences. Unfortunately, if you're north of Florida, Mexico, Africa or India you will be unable to see the Southern Cross that now adorns the flags of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Western Samoa, so let's describe this beauty for you...
If we look in the constellation of Centaurus
we find 2 brilliant stars on the centaur's left leg pointing towards 4 stars
marking the corners of 'the Crux' with a faint 5th star in one
quadrant. One of these pointers is Beta Centauri known as Hadar, and the
other is Rigel Kent - a multiple star system comprising Alpha Centauri A and B that orbit each other plus Proxima Centauri, the closest star to
our solar system at 4.2 light years away. By the way, with a good pair of
binoculars we find the ‘jewel box’ (Crux
cluster) just to the left of the Cross.
If you imagine the foot of the cross extended
south for about another 5 lengths, half way towards the brilliant star Achernar,
you have found the South Celestial Pole.
Why are we telling you of this now?
Every
year on April 1, the Southern Cross is immediately North of the South Celestial
Pole - at midnight! Every month
after that the Crux reaches that
position 2 hours earlier.
Is this just a fluke of nature?...or is there some design in this?
So if it’s fine weather and I’m lost in the desert at night, with no idea of time or direction, who is the April fool?
Acknowledgements:
Stellarium
John Mackay, Creation Research
Eureka flag / wwos.ninemsn.com.au
No comments:
Post a Comment