AMEINAH ALZEYOUDI (ABU DHABI)
The Suhail star is expected to rise over the UAE today, and by tradition, that means the peak of summer heat will soon taper off as cooler winds move in. We already know this from satellites and forecasts. So does that make the star any less significant? Not really.
“People no longer need the star to know when the weather will change,” said Emirati astronomer Ibrahim Al Jarwan, Chairman of the Emirates Astronomical Society and an active member of the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences.
Satellites and weather stations, equipped with the latest technology, now handle the job of forecasting weather. The era of relying on the sky to track seasons is long gone — yet every year, people still look forward to spotting Suhail in the night sky.
Al Jarwan said it comes down to tradition, and how much heritage matters to the UAE, regardless of how fast technology changes the modern world.
Skywatching, he said, encourages people to put down their devices and look up. “This straightforward practice brings people back to direct sensory observation of their environment rather than relying entirely on information delivered through devices,” he said.
Al Jarwan encourages today’s digital natives to learn not just about Suhail, but the many other stars twinkling above. He said they should be taught to look up at the sky, notice changes in their surroundings, and connect what they see with what happens on land and at sea.
According to Al Jarwan, Suhail is part of Arab cultural memory, traditionally linking individuals to the sky, place, and time. Stars, he said, functioned as a natural calendar for civilisations.
“The presence of stars in Arab life was part of a broad system of knowledge and observation,” he said, noting that Arabic language, poetry, proverbs, and folktales are closely tied to stars, lunar phases, and seasonal markers.
Al Jarwan clarified that Suhail does not directly influence temperature or weather. Its appearance is simply an astronomical marker that coincides with a seasonal phase driven by Earth’s yearly cycle and weather patterns.
Still, its emergence has been linked to environmental shifts in Emirati history. It signals cooler nights, changes in humidity and wind, and greater growth activity among certain plants.
Suhail became especially tied to daily life in the Gulf, from fishing and diving to farming and travel. As its observation passed down through generations, the star became more than just an astronomical object.
Finding SuhailThe star, known globally as Canopus, is seen earlier from the southern Arabian Peninsula and later as viewers move north, due to its strong southern declination of about -52.7 degrees. Latitude is largely responsible for this variation, Al Jarwan said.
In the UAE, August 24 is the predicted date, though sighting opportunities began earlier this month in places like southern Yemen. In the northern Arabian Peninsula, the star isn’t expected to appear until the first week of September.
“The star’s height above the horizon is determined by the observer’s location on Earth’s surface,” Al Jarwan said. “Suhail appears later in the morning and is harder to see as you go north because it gets closer to the southern horizon.”
For astronomers, the star’s scientific value lies in its brightness, which offers clues about its current stage of life.
“We study its light to understand the characteristics of the star itself, not just to determine its location in the sky,” Al Jarwan said.