Brick strides onto the stage as flowers are thrown at him.

"Yes, yes, thank you very much! Now put your paws together for our special guest—wait," Brick mewed, looking down the script. "Please join me in welcoming our special guest, Dusky!"

Dusky walked onto stage, purposefully eyeing the projector before pressing a button on the remote. An image blazed onto screen. "Let's make this quick."

"Well, you probably can't tell, but it's meant to be a raven. Or crow. No one seems to know."

The crowd nods, already rapt in the admin and special guest's presentation. "It's just a box!" a cat calls out, sounding like he knows something others didn't. "I was trapped in one once, when twolegs tried to take me away from my Clan!"

Dusky nodded sagely. "Corvus is a Greek constellation, like most constellations. It represents the crow, or raven, the sacred bird of the Greek god of the sun and many other things, Apollo. This is the story behind it. So, Apollo told the bird to watch over his pregnant lover, Coronis. However, Coronis, the naughty thing, decided she didn't want a friggin Greek god any more and fell in love with a human dude. Apollo got very angry after his bird told him the information."

Cats shake their heads, finding it hard to imagine the tragic event and digest all the sorrow.

"So, Apollo blamed it all on the raven, or whatever bird it actually is, and curses it. He thought that it was the raven's fault because the bird was powerless to stop Coronis. Originally the bird had beautiful white feathers, but Apollo turned them the darkest black."

The image on the screen changes to another diagram of Corvus with labels pointing out the name of each star.

"The four brightest stars in Corvus are Delta, Gamma, Epsilon and Beta Corvi. They together form an asterism, which is a pattern or group of stars that is similar but smaller than a constellation. Their asterism is the 'Sail', otherwise known as the 'Spica's Spanker'... funny, I know. It's because Gamma and Delta Corvi point the way to Spica, which is the brightest star in Virgo, another constellation."

Dusky took a deep bow. "Thank you for having me, and I hope you enjoyed my presentation."

Flower petals rain down onto the stage as the CatsofScience admin leaves the stage. The crowd rejoices in their new knowledge.

Written and edited by Saph! 🍩✨