Sirius in fiction below)—and even if such were eventually discovered, with an estimated age of 230 million years the system is too young to have fostered the development of life or a complex biosphere. Sirius AB is the alpha star of the constellation Canis Major (the great dog, sometimes styled as Orion's hunting dog), whence its cognomen "the dog star". The most commonly used proper name of this star comes through the Latin "Sirius", from the Greek Σείριος ("Seirios", "glowing" or "scorcher"). The ancient Greeks observed that the appearance of Sirius heralded the hot and dry "dog days" of summer, and feared that
Dog days even recorded the belief that the return of the bright star was responsible for bringing heat and fever with it; it was also associated with sudden thunderstorms. In Homer's "Iliad", probably composed in the but representing an earlier tradition, Achilles' approach towards Troy, where he will slay Hector, is illustrated through an extended metaphor about the baleful effects attending the return of Sirius: The rising of Sirius during this period has been calculated as 19 July (Julian). Writing about the same time, Hesiod, however, considered the worst and hottest part of the summer to be the days "before" Sirius returned