Universe Today
As with
last week's Universe Puzzle
, something that cannot be answered by five minutes spent googling, a puzzle that requires you to cudgel your brains a bit, and do some lateral thinking. This is a puzzle on a "Universal" topic - astronomy and astronomers; space, satellites, missions, and astronauts; planets, moons, telescopes, and so on.
Name three well-known astronomers - or physicists whose work contributed to astronomy - and whose names are constellations.
For a gold star, say why your three are more prize-worthy than anyone else's!
UPDATE: Answer has been posted below.
There are no prizes for the first correct answer - there may not even be just one correct answer - posted as a comment (the judge's decision - mine! - will be final), but I do hope that you'll have lots of fun.
Hon. Salacious B. Crumb, Charles A. Musca, David Virgo, and V.R. Phoenix are indeed possible answers, but they are not particularly well-known. You definitely get an extra point for going to "defunct constellations", but it is creativity too far.
Navneeth, Leó Szilárd (Leo) is an excellent answer!
renoor, Francis Drake (Draco) is a wonderful, left-field answer!
Gadi Eidelheit, Henrietta SWAN Levitt (Cygnus) is good, not least because I had that on my list. And LEOnard Euler is also excellent! However, you get only half marks for Maximillian WOLF (Vulpecula) - Vulpecula is 'Fox'; Lupus is 'Wolf'; and no marks for Charles Augustione de COLUMBO (you mean Charles Augustin de Coulomb; the constellation Columba, the Dove, is not related to Coulomb).
In addition to Henrietta Swan Levitt (Cygnus), I had the following: * William Swan (he left his name in astronomical spectroscopy, google Swan bands) * Bill Keel (Carina; Bill is extremely active in his support of amateurs, Galaxy Zoo, etc, etc - 'ngc3314' is his handle - and also has done excellent work on dust in spiral galaxies) * Arthur Wolfe (Lupus; his name is in the cosmologically important Sachs-Wolfe effect) * Tim Hunter (Orion; co-founded the International Dark Sky Association, in 1987) * Charles Wolf (Lupus again; together with Georges Rayet he discovered the Wolf-Rayet stars)
Check back next week for another Universe Puzzle!