The word element refers to the state of matter (solid / earth, liquid / water, gas / air, plasma / fire) or the phases of matter. The four classical Greek elements are: earth, water, fire and air.

The Hindus and the Japanese add a fifth invisible element, the ether .

The Chinese had: earth, water, fire, metal and wood, understood as different types of energy in a state of constant interaction and flow between them, unlike the western notion which refers to the different types of materials.

The classical elements ( fire , earth , air and water ) represent in Greek philosophy, science and medicine the understanding of the cosmos where everything that exists coexists.

• The fire is both hot and dry.
• The earth is both cold and dry.
• The air is both hot and humid.
• The water is both cold and wet.

They were used by Hippocrates when describing the human body in association with the four moods :

• yellow bile ( fire ),
• black bile or melancholy ( earth ),
• the blood ( air )
• phlegm or pituite ( water ).

Some beliefs included a fifth element, the " ether " or " quintessence ."

The Pythagoreans added the idea as the fifth element, and even used the initial letters of these five elements to name the angles of their staff.

Aristotle added the fifth element as quintessence, reasoning that the earth, fire, air, and water were earthly and corruptible, and since nothing like this had happened on celestial lands, the stars could not be made of any of these elements, but of a different one, unchangeable; A heavenly substance . The word ether was revived in the nineteenth century by physicists as a term for the invisible medium that filled the universe, the luminous ether .

Some occultists associated the states of matter with classical elements: solid (Earth), liquid (Water), gas (Air), or plasma (Fire) .

The four moods are: choleric, melancholic, blood and phlegmatic

The theory of four moods or humor, which maintains that the human body is full of four basic substances, called moods (liquids), whose balance indicates the state of health of the person. Thus, all diseases and disabilities would result from an excess or deficit of any of these four moods. Each of the four moods was considered to increase or decrease depending on the diet and activity of each individual. When a patient suffered from fluid surplus or imbalance, then his personality and health were affected.

Summary in a theory table

Ancient elements in China

In Tao sm there is a system that includes:

• metal
• wood

but excludes air. The five major planets are associated with the name of the elements:

• Venus is metal .
• J piter is wood .
• Mercury is water .
• Mars is fire .
• Saturn is earth .

Additionally, the Moon represents yin and the Sun represents yang .

Ancient elements in Hinduism

The pancha maja bhuta ( five great elements ), of Hinduism are

1. prithvi or bhumi (earth)
2. ap or pull (water)
3. agni or shingles (fire)
4. vaiu or pavan (air or wind)
5. akasha (ether)

Ancient elements in early Buddhism

In Pali literature, the maja bhuta (large elements) or chatu dhatu (four elements) are:

• Water, earth, fire and air.

Ancient elements in Japan

They use a group called the ?? ( go dai, literally 'the big five'). These five are:

• Earth , water , fire , wind , emptiness .

The four elements in astrology

The four elements of Western classical astrology represent four ways in which energy manifests itself, four expressions of the whole, from its densest and heaviest form to the most immaterial . There are other forms of energy, since in the universe everything is energy, but these four are enough to describe the entire broad spectrum of physical and psychic manifestations of organisms : Earth, Water, Air and Fire.

These four elements are distributed in the zodiac at a rate of three times each alternately.

The four elements symbolize different ways of perceiving the world and itself .

Fire element

It is the least condensed energy of the four, the most intangible and the fastest . Fire is action, but not an action product of a conviction, a feeling or a reflection, but rather of what we might call an instantaneous will, and that is why it is considered an element of intuition . She is faster than thought, feeling and feeling, and does not stop at obstacles, considerations or fears. The immediate objective is the only thing that exists for the subject.

The color of the fire element is orange red, and the associated temperament, the choleric, which tells us about explosive, sudden and fleeting reactions that leave no trace and are self-consumed. Fire is the most polarized yang element, masculine, fruitful .

Fire is will, which can be dispersed in simple desires or passions, or in true will governed by the scale of individual values. In the first case, these are ephemeral volitions in search of material or psychic satisfactions. In the second case, it is oriented towards the future, towards spiritual realization, oblivious to the frivolous temptations of material life. We could say that desires are the fall of the will in the temporal, temporary, perishable, and that the real will is timeless, oriented towards the eternal.

There is much talk of fire as a consuming, scorching element, but we must not forget that nothing is consumed in the sense of extinction, but only transformed . Fire stands as the catalyst for the fastest energy transformations . Before there is an idea, there is the fact, for better or worse. Keeping in mind the characteristics of the unlimited symbol element, we can easily deduce that the person with a fire sign is, first of all, an optimist, both in the appreciation of their own strengths and in the assessment of their possibilities to achieve their goals, over which presumes success in advance. His act is imperative, he “has to do it” according to his fast internal dictates, a process in which he demands from others the same speed and efficiency that he brings. He is often found in the role of leader, which he naturally accesses thanks to his conquering power, his great energy and fighting capacity, his self- confidence, his enthusiasm, his spirit of self-improvement, his drive and his incessant creativity to achieve the goals he sets.

The man of fire is the bearer of the flag of an ideal, and generally finds those who support him to make it happen. Once that goal has been achieved, it immediately replaces it with another objective, in an indefatigable process of self-affirmation of one's own will, in which the achievements obtained are secondary. This man does not have time to look back, he is insatiable in every sense of the word, with the impulse always ready for what comes next. This is one of the reasons why he is not depressive, because he never stops to regret the past .

Let us add that he lacks consideration for others, who have to bear his demands and his overwhelming impulses that destroy everything that lies ahead. He is very little diplomatic and does not waste his time in giving explanations or excuses. It does not stop at the logical or formal aspects of things, nor does it surrender to prolonged psychological concerns. 0 instantly reaches the core of the matter, or loses interest. Nothing chronic or restricted attracts you, but the new, the unchecked, the undiscovered, the unlimited. The maximum ideal of the man of fire is the conquest of his own freedom according to his own values, and the greatest catastrophe that could occur to him is the collapse of his ideals . Their prototypes are the preacher, the hero, the prophet, one at a time, and even all three at once.

Among the virtues of the man of fire are inspiration, insight, productivity, efficiency - "the greatest efficiency with the least effort and in the shortest possible time" is his motto - courage, bordering on temerity, spontaneity, independence, self-motivation with loyalty to your ideal, honesty, warmth, vitality, lack of prejudice . Its negative aspects come from its same virtues: aggressive, insensitive to the needs of others, demanding, self-centered, impatient, fantasy, arrogant, impertinent, extravagant, tax, tyrant, cruel .

The expression of these characteristics will depend on how much the individual has risen on the evolutionary scale . On a lower level, all the vigor and impulsiveness of the fire will be oriented towards material and immediate objectives with a greater probability of emphasizing only desires. On a higher level, the transforming force of this element will be directed towards high ideals, either consciously or unconsciously. We said at the beginning that the signs of each element represented a progressive purification of its characteristics. Thus the first of them Aries symbolizes the most primitive aspects, emphasizing the awareness of their own existence, the newborn born of Zod aco : I am . The second Leo represents the adolescent, who already has self-consciousness, and whose motto is: I do . The third Sagittarius governed by the wise J piter, represents knowledge, and its expression is: I see . Of course, this classification is only symbolic, since in each of the three signs there are individuals of all evolutionary levels.

Physics

The chemical reaction of violent oxidation of a combustible material is called fire, with release of flame, heat , water vapor and carbon dioxide . It is an exothermic process. From this point of view, fire is the visual manifestation of combustion .

It was also noted as a rapid chemical oxidation reaction that is produced by the evolution of energy in the form of light and heat .

When the fire was new

For the existence of fire, oxygen must exist and this element has not always been present in our atmosphere, so fire is after Earth . Contrary to what seems obvious, the Sun has no fire, but incandescent plasma .

The fire is then subsequent to the presence of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere and this in turn is due to the proliferation of photosynthetic vegetables that filled the atmosphere with oxygen through this function. .

Earth element

The earth is the densest of the energy forms of the elements, the most tangible and measurable ; He is also the slowest of them, a slowness that compensates with perseverance and determination . The earth is an element of perception ; its approach to the world is done through the senses : palpating, smelling, weighing, watching, measuring, listening, hence its low speed. In terrestrial elements, it represents the mineral ; in the consciousness of man, the bodily . Its color is green and its associated temperament is melancholic . The earth is yin, passive, cold and dry . It represents the workers, those who execute things, the realists, the concrete, classic and practical .

The world of the earthman is here and now, in the palpable reality, which he accesses through the practical intellect, the "doing" through matter and form . His specialty is to leave traces on objects. Its main organ of action is the hand, with which it realizes its objectives in this world; Because his world is physical and immediate . It is the building element, as well as the preservative of the built. Tradition and norm guide his behavior as he progressively delves into the terrestrial world and persistently overcomes the resistance that matter opposes him, which he does with all his energy and will. Find your complacency in the finished task and in the enjoyment of the work accomplished . His life is conducted in a predetermined rhythm, with a stable grip on something already traveled and known: the past, the family, the homeland, the custom, the history . It will not be easily dazzled by illusions, expectations or unrealizable dreams. He needs to touch to believe, like Thomas the Apostle.

While the man of fire sows for the pleasure of doing so, and leaves hurriedly without giving himself time to wait for the harvest, the man of earth does it for the sole purpose of harvesting . It does not disperse in anything that will not produce a fruit . If this is glimpsed on the horizon, he is capable of an unmatched amount of work, effort and perseverance, and nothing will distract him from his task. The man of earth is also, by definition, the preserver of the species. Its maximum aspiration is the performance, either in terms of material possessions, of its position in the society in which it lives, or in the accumulation of knowledge that may be applicable to productivity .

Among the virtues associated with this element are industriousness, perseverance, tenacity, consideration, tolerance, objectivity, reliability, solidity, patience, caution, sobriety, conciliation . What we could call its defects are the excess of its virtues: stubbornness, lack of imagination or self-motivation, low capacity for abstraction, excess of conventionalism or formality, rigidity, restriction in reasoning and acting, excessive worry about appearances, passivity . In general, the earth signs are very dependent on your body, both in terms of your health and your pleasure . They are the most sensory of the zodiac and, therefore, the most attached to the direct perception of their bodily well-being, which can result in a strong attachment to gastronomy, sex, clothing, perfumes .

Regarding its location in the zodiac, the first land sign - Taurus - is the one that most allows sensuality, in decreasing order until it reaches Capricorn . In tangible symbols, Taurus would be the land preparer, Virgo, the sower, and Capricorn, the one busy with the harvest and its use . The first - the child - wants to feel that he has and his motto is: " I have ". The second - the teenager - goes a little further in his possession and his motto is: " I analyze ". The third - the adult - needs to know what he can and his motto is " I achieve ".

Air element

It is the second least dense element of astrology, after fire. His low materiality leads him to be the rector of thought . Its field of action is in ideas, in creativity, in imagination, reflection, fantasy, communication through written or spoken language. Unlike the previous two, this is a rational element and represents our cognitive power . The air is hot and dry, it is associated with blood temperament, that is, violent and sudden . Its color is yellow . It is also the second most yang or active element, after the fire.

The man of air is typically visualized as the philosopher, the researcher, the idealist, the mad genius who lives immersed in abstraction without perceiving the immediate reality at all, nor knowing how to survive in it. The mental world of this element elaborates the invisible vessels that can be accessed only after the matter is turned over. In your world there is not a happening, but only a create ; All knowledge is an active training in mental substance, connected and projected into the future. This man is not attracted to matter but as a possibility of abstraction, and uses the physical world for the elaboration of mental forms .

This is the language of an air man. Essentiality cannot be explained by the laws of matter; However, it is not a vacuum, but something as solid as the palpable, this being the modeling of that. Matter is transformed while its essence remains immutable. Thus the man of evolved air is a metaphysician .

In his daily life the man of air lives a kind of dreamlike unreality, immersed in his mental buildings . These ideal constructions can be projected actively as an artistic realization, or in a more passive way in which the creator encloses himself in his mental sphere, in a continuous self-constructing reality . Reality that undoubtedly exceeds all the splendor of the world out there. Because the highest motivation of the air man is beauty, for him: the root cause . His worst tragedy is having to land in this tangible world. Its nature tends to make it more a spectator than an actor, in this permanent representation of life . He sees her, not through his senses, but through his mind . And so he prefers to criticize the projection rather than intervene in it, because he is a life theorist.

Among the qualities of the airmen are their mental vivacity, their good communication, their objectivity when it comes to a specific problem to solve, their harmonious and friendly behavior, their sociability, their inspiration, their creativity, their taste for aesthetics, its flexibility, its adaptability, its industriousness at the mental level, its unifying character. The characteristics that make it difficult for him to integrate with others are: a certain distance, appreciated as coldness by his null emotion, the awkwardness with the concrete and contingent world of the practical, lack of solidity or coherence, volubility, superficiality, thematic pecking without deepening, excessive criticism, dogmatism in its categorization of the behaviors of others, reaching the destructive in extreme cases.

As for the three air signs of the zodiac, Gemini would represent the most massive communicator, he is the information collector. Libra, the most productive, is the creator of the forms based on the data collected, its production is often oriented towards the arts. Aquarius, the most abstract of the group, focuses its mental activity on structuring, on the ordering of forms in a system. The first, symbolizing the child, is expressed as: I think . The second, representing formal relationships, says: I weigh . Aquarius, the idealist, is the prototype of the I do .

In ancient cultures, air is commonly seen as a universal force or pure substance . Its fundamental importance for ancient life can be seen in words such as spirit, inspire, expire and aspire, all derived from the Latin spirare ( breathe ).

Water element

The fourth of the elements, water, is the second most dense energy after the earth. As such, its expression and expansion occurs in the form of circular waves in every way. It is well known that it is not possible to restrict this expansion, and that a stimulus applied at any point of its mass will vibrate to the farthest corner of it. We have thus described in essence the feeling in astrology: vulnerable, easy to influence, unstable, since being liquid flows and adopts the shape of the container that contains it. Its color is blue, its associated temperament is the phlegmatic . It is cold and fearful, passive, feminine, the second most after the earth.

To the world of water belong passions and instincts, pain and pleasure, feelings, fears and desires, hopes and despair, the esoteric and the entire psychic world, everything that is not formulated in thoughts neither through the senses nor through matter. Time and space here have an amazing relativity, the main unit of measure being the intensity of what “attracts me” or “repels me”, “likes” or “dislikes me ”. Everything that does not have enough intensity becomes distant and insignificant. In the same way time is distorted; all that matters is "now ", which may include material from the past, present or future, through variable, mobile connections, adaptable to the flow of the liquid, to the processing of the lived. The world of the water man is that of moods, that of the most extreme subjectivity . There the physical body and the mental world lose importance, and the will dwarfs . They tend to dominate desires in pairs of opposites : hope (yearning) - fear (of not achieving what is desired). This polarity is oriented towards others, from whose psyche the water man feeds. He lives on the basis of intense sorrows and other people's joys, even at the expense of the other facets of reality, or that the causes of such emotions have long since disappeared. He tries to stay as long as he can in this dreamlike, playful environment of psychism, living in the nostalgic romanticism of the unattainable, of "the possibility of ..." of the foreboding, of the discovery of realities beyond the sensible. The interpretation of art, the intuition of mystical backgrounds, esoteric studies, become more important than everyday reality.

The water element, like that of the earth, turns to the past, but in a different way, because it lives in incomplete digestion, which tries not to settle so as not to fall into reality. This determines that it constitutes the element that carries the most guilt with it, guilt that includes even bad thoughts . But while the earth man tries to repair what has been done, the man of water can only suffer . He suffers for his faults, and also because he is emotionally in tune with others and suffers with them, as if those pains were his own.

Among the virtues of watermen is their deep emotionality, their receptivity to the feelings of others, their spiritual vigor, their psychic and esoteric potentials, their compassion, their unconscious perception, their love of creatures, their altruism and protective sense, its adaptability . Its defects are born from a low-level approach of those same qualities: cheap sentimentality, instability, uncertainty, unconscious adoption of other people's behavior, manipulation of others, irrational fears, hypersensitivity, frustration, permanent victim attitude, poor logic, excess of subjectivity, volubility, distrust and suspicion, isolation .

The first of the water signs - Cancer - is the most sensitive to emotionality, the one that is most at the mercy of the coming and going of its waters; graphically it can be conceived as a river, and its currency is: "I feel ". The second - Scorpio - is deep water, apparently stagnant, but with underground currents, similar to a lake; It is associated with the experience of sex and " I desire ". Pisces, on the other hand, has been described as the unfathomable ocean, represents the experience of submission to the transcendent and the " I believe ." The latter constitutes the water sign that can best use its psychic sensibility for clarification and transformation.

The characteristics of the four elements of the zodiac that we have described must be understood as representing what they would be in their pure state, which is almost impossible to find in nature. Fortunately, in life the types are mixed in some proportion, which facilitates the exchange and communication with others, which would otherwise be very difficult. When examining the natal map, one sees which and how many planets fall into a sign of water, air, etc. In this way we can determine the percentage of each element that is in a given person. There are elements that are more compatible with each other than others, although somehow, they are all exclusive, in the sense that they represent very different ways of accessing reality. Each element brings its vision, and each is only part of what we might call reality. Even if we were able to obtain the global perspective of each of the four elements, we would still be perceiving a part of the existing, as long as we cannot conquer the whole, the One that includes everything and to which we are going.

Water as an element has been of great importance to people, both spiritually and vitally. In Greek and Roman mythology, water was a classic element, associated with emotion and intuition . It is also associated with sentimentality in other cultures, including Chinese, Japanese and Wicca culture.

Water manifests itself in rivers, oceans, lakes, wells, fog, drinks and rain. It is believed that animals are personifications of water, especially those of the sea such as dolphins, seals, turtles, frogs and all types of fish. The astral creatures of water are mermaids and sea snakes. Water is represented on the pentagram as the right end above.

Ether (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Ether or Aether (in ancient Greek ????? Aíth? R, from ???? aíthô, 'burn') was one of the Protogonos, the personification of the ' higher heaven', space and paradise Is the air high, pure and bright that the gods breathe, as opposed to the dark ??? a? r ('air') of the Earth that mortals breathed.

The Ether was the soul of the world and all life emanated from it.

Fifth Element

The aither ("aether") is another mysterious concept related to fire. It would correspond to the Celestial Fire . These five elements are not those that form the world, but those that destroy it: fire (conflagrations), water (floods), air (gales and hurricanes) and earth (earthquakes). According to this relationship, it seems that aither is a thermal radiation like that of the sun and the like, capable of spreading in empty space.

Ether (physical)

The ether (from Latin aeth? R and in turn from Greek ????? aith? R 'ethereal substance') was in some obsolete theories, an hypothetical extremely light substance that was believed to occupy all empty spaces as a fluid .

The ether in Aristotle's philosophy

For Aristotle (384–322 ANE) the ether was the material element of which the so-called supralunar world was composed , while the sublunar world is made up of the famous four elements: earth, water, air and fire.

Unlike these, the ether is for Arist teles a more subtle and lighter element, more perfect than the other four (the physics of Arist teles it is qualitative, more than quantitative) and, above all, its natural movement is circular, unlike the natural movement of the other four, which is rectilinear.

In India

In India, the ether is known as akasha . In Sankhia cosmology do you talk about the Pahcha mah? bh? ta (five main elements), each eight times more subtle than the previous one:

1. earth ( bhumi ), water ( apu ), fire ( agn ), air ( vaiu ), ter ( akasha ) .

The ether and theories of light

By the end of the 19th century, James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) had proposed that light was a transverse wave. As it seemed hardly conceivable that a wave would propagate in a vacuum without any material means to support it, it was postulated that the light could actually be propagating over a hypothetical material substance, for which the name ether was used (due to some superficial similarities with the hypothetical substance of Aristotelian physics).

Because the speed of light depends on the density of the medium, being generally slower in denser media, it was proposed that the ether should have a very small density and a high coefficient of elasticity. This explanation was present in the times of formulation of the electromagnetic field theory by Maxwell (1831-1879), Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) and Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), in which the concept of ether was included in a way similar to the modern concept of electromagnetic field.

Refutation of the existence of the ether

In an attempt to prove the existence of the ether and the speed of the Earth's translation with respect to it, Albert Abraham Michelson (1852-1931) and Edward Morley (1838-1923) designed an experiment capable of measuring the speed of light in two directions perpendicular to each other and with different linear velocity relative to the ether. It was the famous experiment by Michelson and Morley (1887) whose negative results in successive attempts eventually dissipated the concept of ether and served as the basis for the formulation of Einstein's theory of special relativity .

New insights

Recent theoretical works such as those by HongSheng Zhao of the University of St. Andrews, in an attempt to incorporate dark matter and dark energy into a single theoretical framework they postulate that a dark energy similar to a fluid can behave like dark matter if it reaches a sufficiently high density. Esta idea similar a la del eter eliminaría la necesidad de la existencia de las Partícula Masiva de Débil Interactuación (WIMP) afectando a la velocidad a la que pueden rotar las galaxias y justificando así los datos experimentales hasta ahora obtenidos. Dichos datos anómalos en la teoría convencional habían llevado a diversos intentos de solución tan curiosos como las MOND.

Curiosities

• El significado inicial de 'medio por el que viaja una señal' es el origen de la palabra Ethernet .

Metal

Metal se denomina a los elementos químicos caracterizados por ser buenos conductores del calor y la electricidad, poseen alta densidad, y son sólidos en temperaturas normales (excepto el mercurio y el galio); sus sales forman iones electropositivos (cationes) en disolución.

La ciencia de materiales define un metal como un material en el que existe un solape entre la banda de valencia y la banda de conducción en su estructura electrónica (enlace metálico). Esto le da la capacidad de conducir fácilmente calor y electricidad, y generalmente la capacidad de reflejar la luz, lo que le da su peculiar brillo.

El concepto de metal refiere tanto a elementos puros, así como aleaciones con características metálicas, como el acero y el bronce. Los metales comprenden la mayor parte de la tabla periódica de los elementos y se separan de los no metales por una línea diagonal entre el boro y el polonio. En comparación con los no metales tienen baja electronegatividad y baja energía de ionización, por lo que es más fácil que los metales cedan electrones y más difícil que los ganen.

En astrofísica se llama metal a todo elemento más pesado que el helio.

Wood

La madera es un material ortotrópico encontrado como principal contenido del tronco de un árbol. Los árboles se caracterizan por tener troncos que crecen cada año y que están compuestos por fibras de celulosa unidas con lignina . Las plantas que no producen madera son conocidas como herbáceas.

Venus (planeta): Metal

Venus es el segundo planeta del Sistema Solar en orden de distancia desde el Sol, y el tercero en cuanto a tamaño (de menor a mayor). Recibe su nombre en honor a Venus , la diosa romana del amor . Se trata de un planeta de tipo terrestre o telúrico, llamado con frecuencia el planeta hermano de la Tierra, ya que ambos son similares en cuanto a tamaño, masa y composición. La órbita de Venus es una elipse con una excentricidad de menos del 1%, prácticamente una circunferencia.

Al encontrarse Venus más cercano al Sol que la Tierra, siempre se puede encontrar, aproximadamente, en la misma dirección del Sol (su mayor elongación es de 47, 8º), por lo que desde la Tierra se puede ver sólo unas cuantas horas antes del orto o después del ocaso. A pesar de ello, cuando Venus es más brillante puede ser visto durante el día, siendo uno de los tres únicos cuerpos celestes que pueden ser vistos tanto de día como de noche (los otros son la Luna y el Sol). Venus es normalmente conocido como la estrella de la ma ana ( Lucero del Alba ) o la estrella de la tarde ( Lucero Vespertino ) y, cuando es visible en el cielo nocturno, es el objeto m s brillante del firmamento, aparte de la Luna.

Por este motivo, Venus debi ser ya conocido desde los tiempos prehist ricos. Sus movimientos en el cielo eran conocidos por la mayor a de las antiguas civilizaciones, adquiriendo importancia en casi todas las interpretaciones astrol gicas del movimiento planetario. En particular, la civilizaci n maya elabor un calendario religioso basado en los ciclos de Venus (ver Calendario maya). El s mbolo del planeta Venus es una representaci n estilizada del espejo de la diosa Venus : un c rculo con una peque a cruz debajo, utilizado tambi n para denotar el sexo femenino .

Los adjetivos venusiano-a, venusino-a y ven reo-a (po ticamente) son usados para denotar las caracter sticas habitualmente atribuidas a Venus-Afrodita. El adjetivo ven reo suele asociarse a las enfermedades de transmisi n sexual. Es junto a la Tierra (diosa Gea de la antig edad) el nico planeta del Sistema Solar con nombre femenino, aparte de dos de los planetas enanos, Ceres y Eris.

J piter (planeta): Madera

J piter es el quinto planeta del Sistema Solar. Forma parte de los denominados planetas exteriores o gaseosos. Recibe su nombre del dios romano J piter ( Zeus en la mitolog a griega).

Se trata del planeta que ofrece un mayor brillo a lo largo del a o dependiendo de su fase. Es, adem s, despu s del Sol, el mayor cuerpo celeste del Sistema Solar, con una masa casi dos veces y media la de los dem s planetas juntos (con una masa 318 veces mayor que la de la Tierra y 3 veces mayor que la de Saturno).

Júpiter es un cuerpo masivo gaseoso, formado principalmente por hidrógeno y helio, carente de una superficie interior definida. Entre los detalles atmosféricos se destacan la Gran mancha roja, un enorme anticiclón situado en las latitudes tropicales del hemisferio sur, la estructura de nubes en bandas y zonas, y la fuerte dinámica de vientos zonales con velocidades de hasta 140 m/s (504 km/h), se piensa que puede ser una “ Estrella fallida “ debido a sus grandes cantidades de hidrógeno y helio.

Mercurio (planeta): Agua

Mercurio es el planeta del Sistema Solar más próximo al Sol y el más pequeño (a excepción de los planetas enanos). Forma parte de los denominados planetas interiores o rocosos. Mercurio no tiene satélites. Se conocía muy poco sobre su superficie hasta que fue enviada la sonda planetaria Mariner 10 y se hicieron observaciones con radares y radiotelescopios.

Antiguamente se pensaba que Mercurio siempre presentaba la misma cara al Sol, situación similar al caso de la Luna con la Tierra; es decir, que su periodo de rotación era igual a su periodo de traslación, ambos de 88 días. Sin embargo, en 1965 se mandaron pulsos de radar hacia Mercurio, con lo cual quedó definitivamente demostrado que su periodo de rotación era de 58, 7 días, lo cual es 2/3 de su periodo de traslación. Esto no es coincidencia, y es una situación denominada resonancia orbital.

Al ser un planeta cuya órbita es interior a la de la Tierra, Mercurio periódicamente pasa delante del Sol, fenómeno que se denomina tránsito (ver tránsito de Mercurio). Observaciones de su órbita a través de muchos años demostraron que el perihelio gira 43″ de arco más por siglo de lo predicho por la mecánica clásica de Newton. Esta discrepancia llevó a un astrónomo Francés, Urbain Le Verrier, a pensar que existía un planeta aún más cerca del Sol, al cual llamaron Planeta Vulcano, que perturbaba la órbita de Mercurio. Ahora se sabe que Vulcano no existe; la explicación correcta del comportamiento del perihelio de Mercurio se encuentra en la Teoría General de la Relatividad.

Marte (planeta): Fuego

Marte, apodado a veces como el Planeta Rojo, es el cuarto planeta del Sistema Solar. Forma parte de los llamados planetas telúricos (de naturaleza rocosa, como la Tierra) y es el planeta interior más alejado al Sol. Es, en muchos aspectos, el más parecido a la Tierra.

Tycho Brahe midió con gran precisión el movimiento de Marte en el cielo. Los datos sobre el movimiento retrógrado aparente (lazos) permitieron a Kepler hallar la naturaleza elíptica de su órbita y determinar las leyes del movimiento planetario conocidas como leyes de Kepler.

Origen del nombre del planeta Marte

Marte era el dios romano de la guerra y su equivalente griego se llamaba Ares . El color rojo del planeta Marte, relacionado con la sangre, favoreció que se le considerara desde tiempos antiguos como un símbolo del dios de la guerra . En ocasiones se hace referencia a Marte como el Planeta Rojo . The star Antares, close to the ecliptic in the constellation of Scorpio, receives its name as a rival (ant-) of Mars, for being its similar brightness in some of its approaches.

Saturno (planeta): Tierra

Saturno es el sexto planeta del Sistema Solar, es el segundo en tamaño y masa después de Júpiter y es el único con un sistema de anillos visible desde nuestro planeta. Su nombre proviene del dios romano Saturno . Forma parte de los denominados planetas exteriores o gaseosos, también llamados jovianos por su parecido a Júpiter. El aspecto más característico de Saturno son sus brillantes anillos. Antes de la invención del telescopio, Saturno era el más lejano de los planetas conocidos y, a simple vista, no parecía luminoso ni interesante. El primero en observar los anillos fue Galileo en 1610 pero la baja inclinación de los anillos y la baja resolución de su telescopio le hicieron pensar en un principio que se trataba de grandes lunas. Christiaan Huygens con mejores medios de observación pudo en 1659 observar con claridad los anillos. James Clerk Maxwell en 1859 demostró matemáticamente que los anillos no podían ser un único objeto sólido sino que debían ser la agrupación de millones de partículas de menor tamaño.

Origen del nombre de Saturno

Debido a su posición orbital más lejana que J piter los antiguos romanos le otorgaron el nombre del padre de J piter al planeta Saturno. En la mitolog a romana, Saturno era el equivalente del antiguo tit n griego Cronos , dios del tiempo . Cronos era hijo de Urano y Gaia y gobernaba el mundo de los dioses y los hombres devorando a sus hijos en cuanto nac an para que no lo destronaran. Zeus, uno de ellos consigui esquivar este destino y finalmente derroc a su padre para convertirse en el dios supremo.

Los griegos y romanos, herederos de los sumerios en sus conocimientos del cielo, hab an establecido en siete el n mero de astros que se mov an en el firmamento: el Sol, la Luna, y los planetas Mercurio, Venus, Marte, J piter y Saturno, las estrellas errantes que a distintas velocidades orbitaban en torno a la Tierra, centro del Universo. De los cinco planetas, Saturno es el de movimiento m s lento, emplea unos treinta a os (29, 457 a os) en completar su rbita, casi el triple que J piter (11, 862 a os) y respecto a Mercurio, Venus y Marte la diferencia es mucho mayor. Saturno destacaba por su lentitud y si J piter era Zeus, Saturno ten a que ser Cronos, el padre anciano, que paso a paso deambula entre las estrellas.

Saturno en varias culturas

En la astrolog a hind, hay nueve planetas, conocidos como Navagrahas. Conocen a Saturno como Sani o Shani, el Juez entre todos los planetas, y determina a cada uno seg n sus propios hechos realizados malos o buenos.

Las Culturas china y japonesa designan a Saturno como la estrella de la tierra dentro del esquema tradicional oriental de utilizar cinco elementos para clasificar los elementos naturales.

En el hebreo, llaman Shabbathai a Saturno. Su Angel es Cassiel . Su Inteligencia, o el espíritu beneficioso, son Agiel (layga), y su espíritu (el aspecto más oscuro) es Zazel (lzaz).

En turco y malayo, su nombre es Zuhal, sacado del árabe ???.