Crossword clues for musca
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Musca \Mus"ca\, prop. n.; pl. Musc[ae]. [L., a fly.]
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(Zo["o]l.) A genus of dipterous insects, including the common house fly, and numerous allied species.
Note: Formerly, a large part of the Diptera were included under the genus Musca.
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(Astron.) A small constellation situated between the Southern Cross and the Pole.
Musc[ae] volitantes. [L., flying flies.] (Med.) Specks or filaments apparently seen moving or gliding about in the field of vision. Their appearance is often a symptom of disease of the eye, or of disorder of the nervous system.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Musca is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman and it first appeared on a 35-cm (14 in) diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603. It was also known as Apis for two hundred years. Musca remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers.
Many of the constellation's brighter stars are members of the Scorpius–Centaurus Association, a loose group of hot blue-white stars that appear to share a common origin and motion across the Milky Way. These include Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta and (likely) Eta Muscae, as well as HD 100546, a blue-white Herbig Ae/Be star that is surrounded by a complex debris disk containing a large planet or brown dwarf and possible protoplanet. Two further star systems have been found to have planets. The constellation also contains two Cepheid variables visible to the naked eye. Theta Muscae is a triple star system, the brightest member of which is a Wolf–Rayet star.
Musca is a genus of flies. It includes Musca domestica (the common housefly), as well as Musca autumnalis (the face fly or autumn housefly). It is part of the family Muscidae.
The modern constellation Musca is not included in the Three Enclosures and Twenty-Eight Mansions system of traditional Chinese uranography because its stars are too far south for observers in China to know about them prior to the introduction of Western star charts. Based on the work of Xu Guangqi and the German Jesuit missionary Johann Adam Schall von Bell in the late Ming Dynasty, this constellation has been classified under the 23 Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu) with the names Bee (蜜蜂, Mìfēng) and ''' Sea and Mountain ''' (海山, Hǎishān).
The name of the western constellation in modern Chinese is 天兔座 (cāng ying zuò), meaning "the housefly constellation".
Usage examples of "musca".
Canopus and Achernar high overhead, and Jack showed his attentive midshipmen the new constellations, Musca, Pavo, Chamaeleon and many more, all glowing in the warm, pellucid air.
That business with the Romulans, and right after it the interminable famine runs for gamma Muscae V, and after that, the intervention at 1210 Circini, with the Enterprise caught in the middle and everybody on the four planets in the neighborhood shooting at her: it was enough to turn your hair gray.
At best, one or more of these species will join us, and after completing the agreement between the Federation and the people of 1212 Muscae, the rest of the mission will degenerate into rubber-chicken banquets.
Personnel who had been assigned on priority to Linguistics duty-or, alternately, to looking for mehave returned to the business of scientific research into the extremely strange evolutionary patterns and history of 1212 Muscae IV.
Musci are, of course, terrestrial mosses, unless Harkness had been abbreviating Muscidae, or flies.
In Cronenberg's film, Homo sapiens meets Musca domestica only by the sheerest contingency.
The female Musca domestica, or common housefly, typically lays 600-1,000 eggs in the course of her roughly two-month lifetime, most of which grow to maturity in 10-12 days, upon which they can set about raising little maggots of their own.
The Latin medical name muscae volitantes (mus'see vol-ih-tan'teez) sounds formidable but is rather colorful, really, since it means "flying flies.