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The Ship Argo

The Argo was the ship of Jason and the Argonauts who sought the Golden Fleece in Greek myth. The huge constellation Argo Navis was devised by the Greeks to honour this vessel. In the mid-eighteenth century, French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1713–1762) divided this unwieldy constellation into three smaller pieces: Carina, the keel of the ship; Puppis, the stern or poop deck; and Vela, the sails. However, he retained the Bayer designations of the original constellation. The constellation was cited in astronomical literature as recently as the early twentieth century but in 1922, the International Astronomical Union settled on de Lacaille's division of the ship.