Braiding a story from day’s-end parade

Look west this week just after the sun drops and you’ll find Scorpius leaning into the dusk, its sting almost vertical, and Antares — a coal-red ember — beating time where the scorpion’s heart would be. Antares means "rival of Mars", and some nights it really does look like the red planet has left its calling card in the scorpion’s chest.

In Māori star lore, Scorpius carries different names as the year turns. In April, May and June it is Manaia ki te Rangi. Come July through September, it becomes Te Matau a Māui, the great fish-hook arcing across the sky. In October and November, it’s the prow of the waka of Tamarēreti, the canoe easing down the Milky Way toward summer. Then, at the beginning of December, Scorpius slips into the blaze of the sun and vanishes; by the end of that month, it returns, reborn in the morning sky.

This week, the scorpion is home to two planets both near the western horizon — Mercury and Mars. Mercury is the brightest, making its best evening appearance of the year for southern observers, climbing away from the sunset glow towards greatest elongation, which occurred a few days ago on October 29. Mars is dimmer, it is fading, edging closer to the sun night by night, and losing the arm-wrestle with twilight. If you have binoculars, sweep just above the horizon half an hour after sunset; Mercury should be first to appear; Mars is closer to the horizon and may be hard to spot in the twilight.

I like to think of this scene as a kind of small-town parade at day’s end: the hook, the prow, the sting, Antares holding its post, Mercury striding out front with a bit of shine, Mars ambling behind, shoulders hunched, already halfway to tomorrow. Stand a minute in the cooling air and let the stories braid themselves — the science of planets sliding along the ecliptic; the memory of navigators who read these curves like coastline; the pleasure of noticing a pattern and calling it by name.