Stellated octahedron

Common card · No. 338627

The stellated octahedron, elevated octahedron, or compound of two tetrahedra is a shape made from two regular tetrahedra crossing each other. It is also called the stella octangula (Latin for "eight-pointed star"), a name given to it by Johannes Kepler in 1609, though it was known to earlier geometers. It appears as a carving in a 13th century Turkish caravanserai, and in modern architectural decorations; it has been depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in Pacioli's 1509 De Divina Proportione, and in the works of M. C. Escher. The two tetrahedra of this shape form the simplest of the five regular polyhedral compounds, and the only regular polyhedral compound composed of only two polyhedra. They form the only fully symmetric stellation of the octahedron, and dually the only fully symmetric faceting of the cube. The combinatorial structure of this shape has been considered in multiple variations; these vary by whether the triangular faces of the two crossing tetrahedra are considered as faces themselves...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Д.Ильин: vectorization, CC0