In the sky of the Arab world … see the ghoul every night and get to know his spooky legend

It is observed in the sky of the Arab world after sunset and early in the night during the month of November, and one of the strangest stars is known as the “ghoul” within the group of Perseus stars, visible to the naked eye.

“Ogre” is a name given to this star in the past, as it was linked to the myth of the dreaded monster, “Medusa”. According to mythical legends, she is a hideous woman whose hair turns into snakes and whoever looks at her turns to stone.

The Jeddah Astronomical Society says that scientifically and far from myths and legends, the “ghoul” is a variable star, which means that its luminosity increases and decreases as we observe it.

There are many stars of varying brightness in the sky, but the ghoul star is perhaps the most famous of all. This star shines and fades in a very regular form, as it cycles through two days, 20 hours and 49 minutes, in addition to the fact that its entire cycle is visible to the naked eye alone.

Ancient sky watchers knew of this star’s change in brightness and called it a “ghoul” – for its strange behavior in a sky filled with constantly luminous stars.

The ‘ghoul’ star can be easily spotted by looking at the northeast horizon at the moment, and a cluster of stars with a Cassopian chair resembling the letter (W) or (M) can be used as a guide that determines the location of the “ghoul star”.

In general, this star will see in the Arab world the onset of night in autumn on the northeast horizon, and it will shine high in winter and in the northwest through spring, and all of this is the result of movement. of the globe around the sun.

We can see that the luminosity of this star changes easily: when it is at its luminosity, it is three times brighter than when it is low.

The reason for this change in the brightness of the ghoul star is due to the fact that it is an “ecliptic binary” and it is a system composed of two stars, one weak and the other bright. , revolving around each other and the Earth the plane of the orbit of this stellar duo falls directly towards us, so when the weak star is in front of the bright star, we see that the star has faded.