Day 17 · January 5, 2028 · At Sea
There is no North Star down here. Sailors in these waters had to find south a different way.
The ship is running north through open water. The nights are getting longer again, and dark enough now to be worth staying up for.
There is no southern pole star
Anyone who grew up in the northern hemisphere learned to find Polaris. It sits almost exactly over the North Pole, so it hardly moves, and it points north all night.
The southern sky has no equivalent. Nothing bright sits over the south celestial pole.
Navigators worked around it. They used the long axis of the Southern Cross, extended down the sky, and cross-checked it against two bright stars nearby. That gets you south with no single star to lean on.
The Southern Cross
Crux is the smallest of the eighty-eight constellations. Four of its stars make the shape on the flags.
Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea all fly it. From most of the United States and Europe it never rises at all.
Two galaxies you can see without a telescope
Two faint smudges sit near the Cross. They look like torn-off pieces of the Milky Way.
They are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and they are separate galaxies, orbiting our own. The southern hemisphere is the only place on earth you can see them.
They are named for Magellan because his surviving crew described them after sailing around the world in the 1520s. The strait you passed through on December 26 is named for the same man.
Onboard with Taylor
Join Taylor for informative and invigorating learning and discussion about the geology, geography, history, and peoples of the areas we’re sailing through.
How to see the southern sky from a ship
Ship lights ruin night vision. Find the darkest stretch of open deck you can, usually well aft, and stand there for twenty minutes without looking at a phone.
Then look up.
Next stop: Montevideo, Uruguay
Uruguay, and a grill house in a cast-iron market hall.
