Flying Eagle

Altair, the brightest star of the constellation Aquila, the eagle, forms one of the points of the brilliant Summer Triangle, which is well up in the east as night falls on July evenings. The star's name comes from an Arabic phrase that means 'the flying eagle.' The inset image at upper right shows the star's shape, which is distorted because Altair spins on its axis much faster than the Sun does. The inset at lower left shows a scene from the 1956 movie 'Forbidden Planet,' which takes place on a fictional planet orbiting Altair. [Damond Benningfield; top right: John Monnier/Univ. Michigan; lower left, MGM]