Valentine's Day: Love is in the Stars, but Hold the Danish

What would Valentine's Day be without hearts and -- Shakespeare?

Yes, I said Shakespeare (although frankly, I'm crazy about Andrew Marvel's "To His Coy Mistress", too.) Over at the exceedingly creative 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, Rob Knop of The Meta Institute of Computational Astronomy focuses on the role of astronomy in Shakespeare's plays.

Shakespeare's plays are full of the occasional astronomical reference. Whether it is a reference to "the stars", a specific referenced to the number of stars in the Pleiades, or even a veiled reference to a famous historical supernova, you hear many of his characteres invoking the sky throughout his plays. In this podcast, I'll discuss several of the references that are found in Shakespeare's tragedies.

Good stuff! My favorite Shakespeare astronomy quote is this poignant plea from Hamlet:

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love."

Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

Not that it did much good overall, as Hamlet, being busy staging a play "wherein to catch the conscience of the king" and embracing alleged insanity while talking to ghosts, ignored his lady. Wherein, of course, the silly girl threw herself in the river. Note: this was pre-feminism.

Today of course, we'd say "Honey, he's not worth it. If you've gotta throw someone in the river, throw in your controlling patronizing daddy, who treats you like property, or give Hamlet a good dunking on a cold day and see if he snaps to. Meanwhile, go to school, get a good job. Maybe--astronomy? Better to be starry-eyed like that than moaning around over some foppish boy."

But, I digress. Maybe fate and romance are written in the stars. Or maybe not. At least there's this galactic heart out there, shared above by the Astronomy PIcture of the Day and described by Daniel Marquardt:

Sprawling across almost 200 light-years, emission nebula IC 1805 is a mix of glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds. Derived from its Valentine's-Day-approved shape, its nickname is the Heart Nebula. About 7,500 light-years away in the Perseus spiral arm of our galaxy, stars were born in IC 1805. In fact, near the cosmic heart's center are the massive hot stars of a newborn star cluster also known as Melotte 15, about 1.5 million years young. A little ironically, the Heart Nebula is located in the constellation Cassiopeia. From Greek mythology, the northern constellation is named for a vain and boastful queen. This deep view of the region around the Heart Nebula, cropped from a larger mosaic, spans about 2.5 degrees on the sky or about 5 times the diameter of the Full Moon.

Give me a side order of science, please--and hold the Danish.