dark cloud constellations : the emu and coalsack nebula

our campsite in the bush near Gilgandra

Camping in a forest of eucalyptus in NSW, we looked up through a clearing to find the most wonderful night sky with stars of exceptional clarity and brightness. This low-tech image below, a 60 second exposure where I left the camera on the ground, shows the varied colours of the stars. What it doesn't convey however, is the dark area in the milky way. Initially surprised by how clear the milky way was in the night sky, we suddenly noticed that there was a significant amount of darkness within it which I've subsequently learned is called the coalsack nebula and the "Emu" - an aboriginal constellation consisting of darkness rather than stars.

the sky in the southern hemisphere photographed near Gilgandra, NSW.
(click on the image to enlarge enough to view) 

Like it's northern hemisphere counterpart the great rift, the Emu is an area of darkness in the night sky that makes it evident that the night sky is never really totally dark. However, these dark areas are not voids, or absences; the dark patches are star forming regions in our galaxy. Proto-stars (newly forming stars) generate molecular dust that doesn't allow light in the visible spectrum to shine through. However, with the advancements of telescopes that see in different light waves (e.g. x-rays or infrared) we now know that there is activity in these dark areas. This too reminds me of my earlier post on a new man made light absorbing material.

the "emu" (image by D. Smith)

I feel I've a lot to learn about aboriginal culture, and being here has sparked an interest in it for me. But I'm especially fascinated to learn of a culture that values the dark spaces, the interstices of the sky as much as it's light and objects.

We were en route to the Warrumbungles and Coonabarabran which have two observatories, being at a higher elevation (1160m above sea level) than the surrounding countryside. Clearly, this is good sky-watching country. Sliding Spring Observatory is housed inside the Warrumbungle National Park, and is Australia's largest optical astronomy research facility.

Back to solid visible objects, as you drive along the road to Coonabarabran, you pass various models of the planets in our solar system with the 37m dome of Sliding Spring Observatory representing the sun.

"Jupiter"

These are scale models (38 million times smaller than the real thing) of the planets in our solar system with relative distances between them as you drive. It was designed to give you an idea of the vastness of the solar system. There's at least an hour and a half of driving between Jupiter and Neptune, the two planets we passed; I'd almost forgotten about it until Neptune popped up, reminding me of the huge space between them. Remembering there's only 5 minutes drive between the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, the distances to the outer planets are phenomenally huge.

Jupiter, west of Coonabarabran

Neptune, in Gunnedah

(See also here for a post on the Guugu Yimithirr people of Northern Queensland).

geocentric

In an article in the New York Times, I recently heard about how there can be linguistic variance in how people experience space within different cultures. Western culture is egocentric with our perception of the environment around us viewed relative to our own bodily position in the world. Some cultures however utilise geography to explain their experiences. Put simply, we tend to describe space through left and right, forward and backwards, which is always dependent upon where we stand in relation to an object (turn around, and what was left will become right) whereas, in the Australian aboriginal tongue, Guugu Yimithirr, from north Queensland, the people refer to directions via North, South, etc and not in relation to themselves.

Quite apart from the rather pleasant thought that non egocentric cultures even exist, the development of language that explicitly recognises space in wider terms results in some extremely interesting consequences. The people speaking Guugu Yimithirr, since their everyday experiences are founded upon a broader awareness of the relationships between places, and have learned from an early age to be continually aware of the cardinal directions of things, have a seemingly superhuman navigational ability. They continually and unconsciously know the relative position of a given thing/place etc and are able to navigate without compass or map in mist, on featureless terrain and appear to have an in-built compass. 


An analogy used in the article was that for you or I, if we were to enter a hotel where every room was decorated out in the same way, all the rooms would to all intents appear the same, regardless of the direction the room faced. For a Guugu Yimithirr speaker, a room on one side of a corridor would appear in marked contrast to the opposite door, where everything would be perceived in completely different orientation.


When recounting a story, the Guugu Yimithirr teller gesticulates towards actual directions; if he/she were to retell the story facing in a different direction, the gestures would still point to the same geographical direction regardless of their change in position.


Even more remarkable is that if you or I were to point towards our chest, we would be understood to be referring to ourselves. For the speakers of Guugu Yimithirr, they are simply pointing in the direction that runs through their own body.