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Columba
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Columba

constellation
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Written by
Erik Gregersen
Erik Gregersen is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, specializing in the physical sciences and technology. Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...
Erik Gregersen
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Latin:
“Dove”
See all related content

Columba, constellation in the southern sky at about 6 hours right ascension and 35° south in declination. Its brightest star is Alpha Columbae (sometimes called Phact, from the Arabic for “ring dove”), with a magnitude of 2.6. In 1612 Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius introduced this constellation on a celestial globe he made and represented it as the dove that the biblical figure Noah released from the ark.

Erik Gregersen