HOME
*



picture info

Matariki
), signalling the Māori new year., litcolor=, observedby=New Zealanders, nickname=, official_name=, alt=, image=M45 Pleiades Pbkwee (cropped to core 9 stars).jpg, relatedto=, date2022=24 June, date2023=14 July In Māori culture, Matariki is the name of the Pleiades star cluster and the celebration of its first rising in late June or early July. This marks the beginning of the new year in the Māori lunar calendar. Historically Matariki was usually celebrated for a period of days during the last quarter of the moon of the lunar month Pipiri (around June). The ceremony involved viewing the individual stars for forecasts of the year to come, mourning the deceased of the past year, and making an offering of food to replenish the stars. Some Māori use the rise of Puanga (Rigel) or other stars to mark the new year. Celebration of Matariki declined during the 20th century, but beginning in the early 1990s it underwent a revival. Matariki was first celebrated as an official public ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Rangi Mātāmua
Rangiānehu Mātāmua is a New Zealand indigenous studies and Māori cultural astronomy academic and is Professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University. He is Māori people, Māori, of Tūhoe descent. He is the first Māori to win a Prime Minister's Science Prizes, Prime Minister's Science Prize, is a Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi, and is the chief advisor to the New Zealand Government on the public holiday Matariki. Academic career Mātāmua wrote his MA thesis on traditional Tūhoe weaponry. His 2006 PhD at Massey University was titled ''Te Reo Pāho: Māori radio and language revitalisation.'' Mātāmua moved to the University of Waikato, rising to full professor of Māori and Indigenous Studies. On 1 September 2021 he became Professor of Mātauranga Māori at Massey University's Te Pūtahi-a-Toi School of Māori Knowledge. Astronomy Mātāmua's career in traditional Māori astronomy began in 1995 when, as a university undergraduate, he asked his grandfathe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Public Holiday In New Zealand
Public holidays in New Zealand (also known as statutory holidays) consist of a variety of cultural, national, and religious holidays that are legislated in New Zealand. Workers can get a maximum of 12 public holidays (eleven national holidays plus one provincial holiday) and a minimum of 20 annual leave days a year. History Bank Holidays in New Zealand originated with a celebration of St Andrew's Day in 1857. Nationwide public holidays began with the Bank Holidays Act 1873, which was based on the UK Bank Holidays Act 1871. Initially there was some resistance to it. Anniversary Days celebrated, from as early as 1843, the first arrivals of settlers in each province. By 1846 the Wellington Anniversary Day was described as having the appearance of an English Fair. A "one off" national public holiday was declared by the Prime Minister for 26 September 2022 to allow people to pay their respects for the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest-reigning monarch of New Zealand. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Māori Culture
Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture and, due to a large diaspora and the incorporation of Māori motifs into popular culture, it is found throughout the world. Within Māoridom, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori culture, the Māori-language suffix being roughly equivalent to the qualitative noun-ending ''-ness'' in English. has also been translated as " Māori way of life." Four distinct but overlapping cultural eras have contributed historically to Māori culture: * before Māori culture had differentiated itself from other Polynesian cultures (Archaic period) * before widespread European contact (Classic period) * the 19th century, in which Māori began interacting more intensiv ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Māori King Movement
The Māori King Movement, called the in Māori, is a movement that arose among some of the Māori (tribes) of New Zealand in the central North Island in the 1850s, to establish a role similar in status to that of the monarch of the British colonists, as a way of halting the alienation of Māori land. The Māori monarch technically operates in a non-constitutional capacity with no legal or judicial power within the New Zealand government, but nonetheless, is a major political and cultural figure in the country for many of its 5 million people, wielding significant lobbying power and . Reigning monarchs retain the position of paramount chief of several and wield some power over these, especially within Tainui. The current Māori monarch, Tūheitia Paki, was elected in 2006 and his official residence is Tūrongo House at Tūrangawaewae marae in the town of Ngāruawāhia. Tūheitia is the seventh monarch since the position was created and is the continuation of a dynasty that r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pleiades
The Pleiades (), also known as The Seven Sisters, Messier 45 and other names by different cultures, is an asterism and an open star cluster containing middle-aged, hot B-type stars in the north-west of the constellation Taurus. At a distance of about 444 light years, it is among the nearest star clusters to Earth. It is the nearest Messier object to Earth, and is the most obvious cluster to the naked eye in the night sky. It is also observed to house the reflection nebula NGC 1432, an HII Ionized region. The cluster is dominated by hot blue luminous stars that have formed within the last 100 million years. Reflection nebulae around the brightest stars were once thought to be left over material from their formation, but are now considered likely to be an unrelated dust cloud in the interstellar medium through which the stars are currently passing. This dust cloud is estimated to be moving at a speed of approximately 18 km/s relative to the stars in the cluster. Computer ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Makahiki
The Makahiki season is the ancient Hawaiian New Year festival, in honor of the god Lono of the Hawaiian religion. It is a holiday covering four consecutive lunar months, approximately from October or November through February or March. The focus of this season was a time for men, women and chiefs to rest, strengthen the body, and have great feasts of commemoration (''ʻahaʻaina hoʻomanaʻo''). During Makahiki season labor was prohibited and there were days for resting and feasting. The Hawaiians gave thanks to the god Lonoikamakahiki for his care. He brought life, blessings, peace and victory to the land. They also prayed to the gods for the death of their enemies. ''Makaʻainana'' (commoners) prayed that lands of their ''aliʻi'' (chief) may be increased, and that their own physical health along with the health of their chiefs be at the fullest. In antiquity, many religious ceremonies occurred during this period. Commoners stopped work, made offerings to the chief or ''alii ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Heliacal Rising
The heliacal rising ( ) or star rise of a star occurs annually, or the similar phenomenon of a planet, when it first becomes visible above the eastern horizon at dawn just before sunrise (thus becoming "the morning star") after a complete orbit of the earth around the sun. Historically, the most important such rising is that of Sirius, which was an important feature of the Egyptian calendar and astronomical development. The rising of the Pleiades heralded the start of the Ancient Greek sailing season, using celestial navigation. Cause and significance Relative to the stars, the sun appears to drift eastward about one degree per day along a path called the ecliptic because there are 360 degrees in any complete revolution (circle), which takes about 365 days in the case of one revolution of the earth around the sun. Any given "distant" star in the belt of the ecliptic will be visible at night for only half of the year, when it will always remain below the horizon. During ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Rigel
Rigel is a blue supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. It has the Bayer designation β Orionis, which is Latinized to Beta Orionis and abbreviated Beta Ori or β Ori. Rigel is the brightest and most massive componentand the eponymof a star system of at least four stars that appear as a single blue-white point of light to the naked eye. This system is located at a distance of approximately from the Sun. A star of spectral type B8Ia, Rigel is calculated to be anywhere from 61,500 to 363,000 times as luminous as the Sun, and 18 to 24 times as massive, depending on the method and assumptions used. Its radius is more than seventy times that of the Sun, and its surface temperature is . Due to its stellar wind, Rigel's mass-loss is estimated to be ten million times that of the Sun. With an estimated age of seven to nine million years, Rigel has exhausted its core hydrogen fuel, expanded, and cooled to become a supergiant. It is expected to end its life a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sterope (star)
The Sterope or Asterope system is a double star in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. Its components have the Flamsteed designations 21 Tauri and 22 Tauri, and are sometimes known as Sterope I and Sterope II, respectively. The International Astronomical Union applies the name ''Asterope'' specifically to 21 Tauri. The two stars are thus * 21 Tauri (or Sterope I, formally Asterope) * 22 Tauri (or Sterope II) The two stars are separated by 0.047° on the sky, which is equal to 2.82 arc-minutes and thus closer than the usual naked-eye resolution limit of 4 arc-min, giving an elongated appearance of the two together. Both are members of the Pleiades open star cluster ( M45) and approximately 440 light-years from the Sun. Nomenclature Asterope was one of the Pleiades sisters in Greek mythology. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN decided to attribute ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Celaeno (star)
Celaeno , designated 16 Tauri, is a star in the constellation of Taurus and a member of the Pleiades open star cluster ( M45) of stars. Properties 16 Tauri is a blue-white B-type subgiant with an apparent magnitude of +5.45. It is approximately 430 light years from the Sun; about the same distance as the Pleiades. The interstellar extinction of this star is fairly small at 0.05 magnitudes. The projected rotational velocity of the equator is 185 km/s. Vizier table J/ApJ/573/359. It is over four times the radius of the Sun and has a surface temperature of 12,800 K. Nomenclature ''16 Tauri'' is the star's Flamsteed designation. It bore the traditional named ''Celaeno'' (or ''Celeno'') and was called the "Lost Pleiad" by Theon the Younger. Celaeno was one of the Pleiades sisters in Greek mythology. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Matariki Stars
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with pronouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of pronoun ''thee'') when followed by a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Electra (star)
Electra , designated 17 Tauri, is a blue-white giant star in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. It is the third-brightest star in the Pleiades Open cluster, open star cluster (Messier object, M45); the most visible stars in this group are named for the Pleiades (Greek mythology), Seven Sisters of Greek mythology. Properties The star has an apparent brightness of 3.72, the third-brightest of the stars in the group. Electra belongs to the spectral class B6 IIIe and is approximately 400 light-years from the Sun. The Pleiades cluster is thought to be 444 light-years away. The stellar rotation, projected rotational velocity of this star is 181 km/s, making it a fast rotator. This is the velocity component of the star's equatorial rotation along the line of sight to the Earth. The estimated inclination of the star's pole is , giving it a true equatorial rotational velocity of . The rapid rotation rate of this star flattens the poles and stretch the equa ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]