Let's Talk About A Notorious Star In The Night Sky Called Sirius.

Every night when we look at the sky we see stars and because we're so used to them we don't appreciate the Designer or the Creator.

Today being the seventh day of the month of December, I will share with you one knowledge of one notorious star that once tormented ancient Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia… Also, this star helped humanity in the past to better understand our galaxy and our planet. One of our earliest calendars was modelled after that, exciting right?

Let's get down to it.

River Nile as we all know is millions of years old, it is the longest river in Africa and arguably one of the longest in the world, although disputed by some Brazilians who think it's the Amazon river. Which to me is just another plot to rob Africa from marine spirits? Right? Whatever.

But this year, in the month of September, River Nile overflowed and killed more than 90 people just in Sudan.

In the past say 50 - 4000yrs ago the river used to kill 300 - 1000 people yearly, insane.

Africa is the second largest continent in the world, right? Not sure, but the river is 10% of our landmass, that's to say if the landmass is estimated at 2,500,000 hectares then the river is occupying 250,000 hectares.

However, the River Nile is divided into the Blue and White Nile. With the White Nile as the head and the Blue Nile holding almost all the water, say close to 75-80%.

Close to 300M people from over 10 African countries depend on this river because of this in the past, Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan used to fight over this river that flows northwards. And of cos almost all rivers flow north.

The Blue Nile. Now let us see how Sirius, the brightest star you will see in the night sky was responsible for this. Let's see how Sirius tormented ancient Egyptians and all for many years.

What am I driving at?

Because of the economic and spiritual importance of this River - Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia always fight over water rights.

Around 1970 or so, Egypt and some countries started building dams.

After the Aswan dam was built, most of the waters were channeled to a reservoir that helped to reduce the water levels every year and this was a major breakthrough as it reduced the flooding greatly. Which to me is a brilliant idea.

Once every year, just before run rise in the eastern sky, River Nile overflows and floods more than 5 countries, crazy.

Ancient Egyptian who thought their gods were punishing them later found out that it was just a star called "Sirius" causing this misfortune.

When this star appears, its planetary wind and magnetic field messes with River Nile causing it to flood its banks bringing economic downtime while claiming lives, so unfortunate.

Because of this, the ancient Egyptians started observing the night sky and monitoring the Stars to know when it will appear before sunrise the next year. As a result of this they accidentally learnt the number of days in a year that the earth had seasons, approximately.

They started developing a new field in science known as astronomy. With their advancement in astronomy they could now predict the best time to plant. They passed knowledge to their children and that was how Egypt became very good with agriculture and astronomy. They later developed their calendars while we were hunting around this corner of Africa.

So simply put, Astronomy started because of the love and hate relationship between River Nile and Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. With Astronomy came the opportunity to accurately (near accuracy) predict times and seasons and when best to plant and harvest, amazing right?

One crazy thing I am sure about or maybe not so sure about was that they stopped sacrificing people to the river goddess when they discovered that it was the star and not any river goddess that was claiming lives and causing economic downtime but did they worship the stars to take the flood somewhere else? Anyways they did, that's why God banned Astronomy in the Bible.

Thanks for reading.

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