By Joe Rao
SPACE.com Skywatching Columnist
posted: 6 June 2008
6:51 am ET

.......... Known as "The Scales" or "The Balance," Libra is marked by an oblong figure of stars and owes its importance only to its position in the zodiac. It supposedly consists of a beam with two pans hanging from it, for weighing things. .....

Just to the east (left) of Libra on these early June evenings, the most beautiful zodiacal constellation can be found emerging into view low in the southeast sky: Scorpius, the Scorpion. Scorpions have two large claws in front, but this one seems to have had his claws clipped. In fact, the claws were indeed cut off to form Libra. A few thousand years ago, Romans decided that there should be 12 constellations in the zodiac, instead of 11, so they made the two claws of Scorpius into the arms of Libra, the Balance.

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