Hey, June: Oh, My Stars! A Solstice Sampler: June 20

Aster is the Greek word for "star," and asteriskos means "little star:" the perfect name for this little star-shaped mark. An asterisk shows that there's some qualifying information attached to a statement, usually printed at the bottom of a page.

Asteroidos means "star-like" in Greek. In the ancient world, the movement of stars and planets was well understood, but sometimes other objects would move across the night sky, looking like stars but behaving differently.

If you take the Greek aster and combine it with logos, meaning "reason" or "plan," you get astrology: the search for meaning and destiny in the patterns of the stars and planets. There's no scientific basis for it, but some people enjoy it as a hobby.

Combining aster with nomos, meaning "law," gets you astronomy: the scientific study of stars, planets, and outer space.

Stella is Latin for "star," and con- means "together," so a constellation is "a group of stars."

In the ancient world, a tragic or catastrophic event was seen as happening under a bad star: a disaster.

Helios is Greek for "sun." Prior to the sixteenth century, it was widely believed that all the planets revolved around the Earth. Then mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus developed a model showing that in fact the sun is the center of the Solar System. Astronomer Galileo Galilei later proved this with observations through his telescope.

Sol is Latin for "sun."

Sistere means "to come to a stop" in Latin, and the summer and winter solstices occur when the sun reaches the highest and lowest points in the sky respectively, seeming to stop before changing direction.

Stella is Latin for "star," so stellar can refer to stars, things that look like stars, or achievements that deserve a gold star.