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Monoceros
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Monoceros

astronomy
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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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Article History
Latin:
“Unicorn”
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Monoceros, constellation in the northern sky at about 7 hours right ascension and on the celestial equator in declination. Its brightest star is Alpha Monocerotis, with a magnitude of 3.9. This constellation contains R Monocerotis, a young star immersed in a nebula. In 1612 Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius introduced this constellation on a celestial globe he made and represented it as a unicorn. Because this area of the sky contains only faint stars, it had not been ascribed to a constellation earlier.

Erik Gregersen