Yesterday morning Mr Blackman came to visit us. He is from the Rotorua Astronomical Society. He told us all about the Matariki cluster Here are some of the interesting things that we learned...
There are different types of stars
Matariki is not a constellation it is a cluster
One light-year is 1 trillion kilometres
There are 9 stars in Matariki that we see but there could be 12
If you find Orion in the sky, follow his sword to Taurus and then down a bit to find Matariki
There are different phases for the moon it takes 1 month to go through all the phases. Originally the word month was month.
On 24th June is when Matariki is far enough from the sun that we can see it rise. Some people cook hangi and the steam going up from the hangi is food for the stars.
Some Maori believe that when you die you go into a waka in the sky (Matariki is the front of the waka then Tauras and Orion). At Matariki time the waka tips up and sends their souls into the sky to make new stars.
Matariki can be seen in lots of different places and it has different names. In Japan the Matariki cluster is called Subaru.
Mrs T and Mrs D have also discovered that we have some little astro-scientists in our classes.
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