Why Most Stars Have Arabic Names: The Medieval Astronomy Story Behind Celestial Naming

Aishwarya Kapoor | Times Life Bureau | Jul 22, 2026, 07:55 IST
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Why Most Stars Have Arabic Names: The Medieval Astronomy Story Behind Celestial Naming
Why Most Stars Have Arabic Names: The Medieval Astronomy Story Behind Celestial Naming
Image credit : Times Life Bureau

Of the roughly 450 stars with officially approved names, more than 200 carry Arabic words as their titles, words that describe a giant's shoulder, a fish's mouth, a swooping eagle. That proportion is not coincidence. It is the fossil record of a single century of Islamic astronomy that preserved, translated, and renamed the entire visible sky.

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