“February Two Dragons Raise Their Heads”: Spica and Dongsheng, Everything Grows_Xinmin Society_Xinmin.com

Today is the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar. There is a folk saying that “on the second day of February, the dragon raises its head”. On this day, the ancients prayed for good weather, abundant grains, and auspicious transshipment. “Dragon raising its head” is actually a kind of astronomical phenomenon, which is related to the ancient people’s observation of the movement of stars and farming culture. The reporter learned from the Beijing Planetarium that tonight (21st) around 10 o’clock, you can see the “dragon raising its head”.

In ancient times, people judged the seasons and guided agricultural production by observing the celestial phenomena. This is the meaning of “observation and timing”. The celestial phenomenon reflected in “Dragon Raises its Head” is that Spica, one of the twenty-eight mansions in early spring, rises from the eastern horizon.

The reporter learned from the Beijing Planetarium that the ancients of our country divided the stars along the celestial equator and the ecliptic into 28 star groups, called twenty-eight constellations, and each seven constellations are divided into groups, corresponding to the Eastern Canglong, the Southern Suzaku, the Western White Tiger, and the Northern Xuanwu. . Among them, Dongfang Canglong contains the seven constellations of Jiao, Kang, Di, Fang, Xin, Wei, and Ji, which vividly outlines the image of a dragon: the spica is the dragon’s head, the heart is the dragon’s heart, the tail is the dragon’s tail, and the rest is the dragon’s tail. dragon body. When the first star of the Eastern Blue Dragon, Spica, rises from the horizon, it is like a dragon raising its head.

Yang Fan, deputy director of the Paleoastronomical Research Center of the Beijing Planetarium:The second month of the lunar calendar is the season for planting. The ancients cared about the rising of the dragon and made it a festival, hoping that the seeds could be planted at the right time. However, the rising of Spica from the horizon at dusk is a celestial phenomenon that people who lived in the Qin and Han Dynasties (can only) see. Due to the influence of precession, after two thousand years, we can only wait until about 10 o’clock in the evening to see the dragon raising its head.

Experts suggest that we see the “dragon raising its head”, that is, the time when Spica rises is about ten o’clock tonight (21st), and it takes about 6 hours for the entire “Canglong”, that is, the seven eastern constellations to rise from the horizon .

(CCTV reporter Lu Nian)