Serpent's Tail 12/7/12

Ken Cone, CAMM <cammoftville@gmail.com>	12/7/12
to theokronos888

(Psalm 88 is equivalent to Psalm 89 in other versions due to different verse numbering in the Vulgate). The connection between the sea-monster and "Leviathan the serpent" is made in Isaiah 27:1.^[15]

In Jewish astronomy this is also identified with the North Pole, the star Thuban which, around 4,500 years ago, was the star in the Draco constellation's "tail".^[12] However this can also have been either the celestial pole or the ecliptic pole. The ancient observers noted that Draco was at the top of the celestial pole, giving the appearance that stars were "hanging" from it, and in Hebrew it is referred to as Teli, from talah (תלה) – to hang.^[16] Hebrew writers from Arabic-speaking locations identified the Teli as Al Jaz'har, which is a Persian word for a "knot" or a "node" because of the intersection of the inclination of the orbit of a planet from the elliptic that forms two such nodes. In modern astronomy these are called the ascending node and the descending node, but in medieval astronomy they were referred to as "dragon's head" and "dragon's tail".^[17]

The Merthyr Synagogue features a dragon on the front gable.^[18]

One of the witnesses in Dallas said he saw a green trail in the sky, paired with a loud boom. At about 6:45 am, residents saw the flashes of light coming from the sky. Of course most of them thought it was a comet or other type of space rock, but the National Weather Service guessed that it “may have been debris from Russian satellite COSMOS 2251 re-entering atmosphere.”

While some people were seeing green-colored light, a Houston resident said it was mostly orange and white. That same witness ended up taking a picture of the spectacle, as seen above. The American Meteor Society received 30 reported sightings, and based on the descriptions they received, it was believed to be a larger-than-normal “fireball” meteor.

Mike Hankey, from the American Meteor Society, said that “most meteors are only the size of small pebbles.” He continued by saying that “a meteor the size of a softball can produce light equivalent to the full moon for a short instant.” However, this one was the size of a basketball, so the light it emitted was probably around 3 to 4 times brighter than moonlight.