# Lupus (constellation)
**Lupus** (abbreviation Lup; genitive Lupi) is a southern constellation representing a wolf, one of the 88 constellations officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union and one of the 48 recorded by Ptolemy in the *Almagest* around AD 150[1](https://iauarchive.eso.org/public/themes/constellations/) • [2](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus). It lies in a rich [Milky Way](https://www.edgepedia.org/milky-way) region between [Centaurus](https://www.edgepedia.org/centaurus) and Scorpius, with Libra, Norma, Circinus, and Ara as further neighbors[3](https://www.starqualityproject.com/blog/lupus-constellation) • [4](https://assa.saao.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2021/03/AstronomyDelights_Magda_Streicher1.pdf). Although its modern figure is a wolf, the ancient Greeks and Romans treated these stars as an unspecified wild animal held or speared by the neighboring Centaur[2](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus). The constellation contains the remnant of [SN 1006](https://www.edgepedia.org/sn-1006), the brightest stellar event in recorded history, and the nearby Lupus molecular clouds, one of the closest regions of ongoing star formation[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/) • [6](https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.05123).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Official designation | Lupus, abbreviated Lup, genitive Lupi, "the Wolf"; one of the 88 IAU constellations[1](https://iauarchive.eso.org/public/themes/constellations/) |
| Classical origin | One of Ptolemy's 48 constellations; anciently the Θηρίον (Therion), an unspecified wild beast, not specifically a wolf[2](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus) • [7](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-the-greek-c/) |
| Location | Southern sky between Centaurus and Scorpius; best placed for viewing in June[3](https://www.starqualityproject.com/blog/lupus-constellation) |
| Brightest star | Alpha Lupi, named Uridim by the IAU in 2024[8](https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/lupus-constellation/) |
| Famous event | SN 1006, the brightest stellar event in recorded history, visible to the naked eye for at least three years from spring 1006 CE[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/) |
| Star formation | The Lupus clouds, at about 160 parsecs, are among the nearest sites of ongoing star formation[6](https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.05123) |
## Name and ancient figure
The stars of Lupus carried no fixed animal identity in classical antiquity. Greek and Roman authors called the figure simply a wild animal: the Θηρίον of Aratus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, the *Bestia* of [Vitruvius](https://www.edgepedia.org/vitruvius), *Fera* of [Germanicus](https://www.edgepedia.org/germanicus), *Hostia* (the Victim) of Hyginus, and *Victima Centauri* in later usage[9](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/Lupus%2A.html). Ancient star charts show the Centaur presenting the beast toward the altar of Ara as if for sacrifice, tying Centaurus, Lupus, and Ara into a single scene of offering[2](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus).
The specific wolf identity emerged later. The name Lupus reappeared in the Alfonsine Tables and as *Fera Lupus* in the Latin Almagests; Richard Hinckley Allen, whose *Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning* (1899) documents these transmissions, records the suggestion that the wolf figure came from an erroneous translation of *Al Fahd*, the Arabic title for the constellation, which meant leopard or panther[9](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/Lupus%2A.html). The shift from a generic wild beast to a named wolf is part of a broader pattern in which later European astronomers sharpened vague classical descriptions into specific animals as the tradition was repeatedly redrawn[2](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus). Independently, Mesopotamian astronomers identified the same stars with UR.IDIM, "the Mad Dog", a human-faced hybrid creature that was its own distinct figure rather than the Centaur's captive[3](https://www.starqualityproject.com/blog/lupus-constellation).
## Modern definition
Johannes Bayer's *Uranometria* of 1603, the first atlas to cover the entire celestial sphere, included Lupus among the classical constellations and assigned its stars Greek-letter designations, with the brightest usually labeled α[10](https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~284972~90057640%3AConstellation--Lupus%2C-the-Wolf-) • [11](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2024.0027). Johannes Hevelius drew the constellation for his *Firmamentum Sobiescianum* of 1690[12](https://www.astro.com/astrowiki/en/Lupus).
The modern constellation is a bounded area of sky rather than a star pattern. Eugène Delporte of the Royal Observatory in Brussels proposed boundaries drawn along lines of right ascension and declination at the 1925 IAU General Assembly; they were approved in 1928 and published in 1930 in *Délimitation Scientifique des Constellations*[13](https://www.iau.org/IAU/IAU/Astronomy-FAQs/Constellations.aspx?hkey=bb9dc841-0618-41b5-ac70-149741062141). When astronomers say an object is "in" Lupus, they mean it lies within those boundaries[13](https://www.iau.org/IAU/IAU/Astronomy-FAQs/Constellations.aspx?hkey=bb9dc841-0618-41b5-ac70-149741062141).
## Stars and observing
Alpha Lupi is the constellation's brightest star, and in 2024 the IAU formally approved the name Uridim for it; Beta Lupi is the second brightest[8](https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/lupus-constellation/). Gamma Lupi is a single-lined spectroscopic binary whose secondary component is a pre-main-sequence star still contracting onto the main sequence, identified through [BRITE-Constellation](https://www.edgepedia.org/brite-constellation) photometry[14](https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.11770). Lupus sits in a star-rich region near Centaurus, and observers often find it by first locating the Pointers, Alpha and [Beta Centauri](https://www.edgepedia.org/beta-centauri)[15](https://www.assabfn.co.za/spacetides/constellations/lupus.htm). The constellation is best placed for viewing in June[3](https://www.starqualityproject.com/blog/lupus-constellation).
## SN 1006
In the spring of 1006 CE, observers across China, Japan, Europe, and the [Arab world](https://www.edgepedia.org/arab-world) recorded the arrival of light from what is now called SN 1006, a supernova in Lupus that modern astronomers still consider the brightest stellar event in recorded history; its light remained visible to the naked eye for at least three years[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/). The explosion was the death of a white dwarf, either by merging with another white dwarf or by pulling too much mass from a companion[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/). NASA's Hubble object page places the remnant 6,850 light-years (2,100 parsecs) away[16](https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/sn-1006-supernova-remnant-hubble/), while NASA's IXPE mission article gives about 6,500 light-years[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/).
The expanding debris cloud, about 60 light-years across, still shines across the electromagnetic spectrum[17](https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2008-july-4-sn-1006-supernova-remnant/). In 2023, NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer captured the first polarized X-ray imagery of the remnant, showing magnetic fields that are turbulent but organized, aligned with the shock wave's motion and connected to the remnant's high-energy particle outflow[5](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/). A separate faint extended X-ray source in the region, the Lupus Loop, is a distinct supernova remnant with a soft X-ray temperature of about 2.5 million K[18](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19790050222&hterms=lupus&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntt%3Dlupus).
## The Lupus star-forming clouds
The direction of Lupus contains the Lupus clouds, a loosely connected concentration of dark clouds and low-mass pre-main-sequence stars spanning Galactic longitudes 334° to 352° and latitudes +5° to +25°, one of the largest low-mass star-forming complexes on the sky[19](https://www.eso.org/~fcomeron/lupus_rev.pdf). At a distance of about 160 parsecs, they are among the nearest sites of ongoing star formation and lie within the Scorpius-Centaurus OB association[6](https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.05123).
Gaia DR2 astrometry transformed the census of this region. A membership analysis over 160 square degrees identified 137 high-probability members of the Lupus association, including 47 stars never previously reported as members, with masses from 0.03 to 2.4 solar masses; many historically known "members" turned out to be field stars or members of the adjacent Scorpius-Centaurus association[20](https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.00233). The subgroups associated with the molecular clouds Lupus 1 to 6 lie at roughly the same distance and move with the same spatial velocity, with median ages of about 1 to 3 million years, making them coeval[20](https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.00233).
These clouds contain extensively studied examples of objects in the earliest phases of how stars form and evolve: the Herbig Ae/Be stars HR 5999 and HR 6000, which are the dominant members of the Lupus 3 cloud; RU Lup, a classical [T Tauri star](https://www.edgepedia.org/t-tauri-star); EX Lup, the prototype of the EXor class; the low-luminosity outflow sources HH 55 and Par-Lup3-4; and the binary [GQ Lup](https://www.edgepedia.org/gq-lup), whose substellar companion may be planetary in mass.[19](https://www.eso.org/~fcomeron/lupus_rev.pdf) Lupus 3 itself, a molecular cloud about 500 light-years away, was imaged by the [Hubble Space Telescope](https://www.edgepedia.org/hubble-space-telescope) as a stellar nursery where bright, hot stars are being born[21](https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/stellar-nursery-bursts-with-newborn-stars-in-hauntingly-beautiful-hubble-telescope-image-space-photo-of-the-week).
## References
1. [The Constellations, IAU](https://iauarchive.eso.org/public/themes/constellations/)
2. [Lupus, Divinity Atlas](https://divinity.interactivelion.com/constellations/lupus)
3. [Lupus: The Wolf Constellation, SN 1006, and Its Brightest Stars, The Star Quality Project](https://www.starqualityproject.com/blog/lupus-constellation)
4. [Astronomy Delights: The constellation of Lupus, Astronomical Society of Southern Africa](https://assa.saao.ac.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/23/2021/03/AstronomyDelights_Magda_Streicher1.pdf)
5. [IXPE Untangles Theories Surrounding Historic Supernova Remnant, NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/ixpe-untangles-theories-surrounding-historic-supernova-remnant/)
6. [A Gaia Survey for Young Stars Associated with the Lupus Clouds, arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.05123)
7. [The Origin of the Greek Constellations, Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-origin-of-the-greek-c/)
8. [Lupus Constellation, Constellation Guide](https://www.constellation-guide.com/constellation-list/lupus-constellation/)
9. [Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, Lupus, Richard Hinckley Allen](https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Topics/astronomy/_Texts/secondary/ALLSTA/Lupus%2A.html)
10. [Constellation: Lupus, the Wolf, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection](https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~284972~90057640%3AConstellation--Lupus%2C-the-Wolf-)
11. [Depopulating the sky: changing patterns of stellar identification in the Philosophical Transactions, Notes and Records](https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2024.0027)
12. [Lupus, Astrodienst Astrowiki](https://www.astro.com/astrowiki/en/Lupus)
13. [The Constellations, IAU](https://www.iau.org/IAU/IAU/Astronomy-FAQs/Constellations.aspx?hkey=bb9dc841-0618-41b5-ac70-149741062141)
14. [BRITE observations of ν Centauri and γ Lupi, arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.11770)
15. [Observing the Constellations from Southern Africa, Astronomical Society of Southern Africa](https://www.assabfn.co.za/spacetides/constellations/lupus.htm)
16. [SN 1006 Supernova Remnant (Hubble), NASA Science](https://science.nasa.gov/asset/hubble/sn-1006-supernova-remnant-hubble/)
17. [APOD: SN 1006 Supernova Remnant, NASA Science](https://science.nasa.gov/image-article/apod-2008-july-4-sn-1006-supernova-remnant/)
18. [Soft X-ray emission from the Lupus Loop and SN 1006 supernova remnants, NASA NTRS](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19790050222&hterms=lupus&qs=N%3D0%26Ntk%3DAll%26Ntx%3Dmode%2Bmatchall%26Ntt%3Dlupus)
19. [The Lupus clouds: a review of star formation, ESO (Comerón)](https://www.eso.org/~fcomeron/lupus_rev.pdf)
20. [Lupus DANCe. Census of stars and 6D structure with Gaia-DR2 data, arXiv](https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.00233)
21. [Stellar nursery bursts with newborn stars, Live Science](https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/stellar-nursery-bursts-with-newborn-stars-in-hauntingly-beautiful-hubble-telescope-image-space-photo-of-the-week)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Physical world and mathematics › Astronomy › Stars and galaxies › Constellations, star names, and catalogs › Individual constellations*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
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