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CancerLocation: Visible in the Northern and Southern HemispheresCoordinates: Right Ascension: 8.7h Declination: +20.2º Source: Mythologies of the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Assyrians, and Egyptians  The story behind the name: Cancer, the crab, is one of the original 13 constellations of the
Zodiac. Despite being a relatively dim constellation, the story behind
Cancer is one of adventure. During one of Hercules's 12 labors, where he
was battling against a Hydra, the goddess Hera sent a crab named Cancer
to distract the hero.
The crab was able to get his claws around
Hercules's toes, but failed to do any more damage as Cancer was crushed
shortly afterwards.
The constellation contains an important star cluster known as the 'beehive'. When observed with the naked eye, it appears as a fuzzy region in the sky. But even through a small optical telescope, its multitude of stars looks like a swarm of bees. The star cluster is known as M44 or NGC 2632. Another interesting object that is found in Cancer is RX J086.3+1527, which is suspected to give off strong gravitational waves. Introduction to Constellations | Constellation Sources | Constellations Index Objects observed by Chandra in Cancer:
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Revised: September 25, 2007
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