Discover: Constellation Scrapbook

Many cultures have stories about the patterns they saw in the sky. The names given to these constellations might be animals or characters from mythology.

Today, astronomers use constellations to map the night sky. They have divided the night sky into 88 constellations that are referred to when tracking their observations. Many of the same names and patterns that were given in ancient times are used today.

You may be familiar with some of the following common constellations:

Orion the Hunter can be located usually by looking for a row of three stars, which is “Orion’s belt”. From there you can see how his body forms the shape of an “X” where the top two stars represent his shoulders and the bottom two stars his knees.

Cassiopeia the Queen looks like a giant letter “W” in the sky. This constellation is supposed to represent the Queen reclining on her throne, but you will have to use your imagination for that!

The Big Dipper (inside Ursa Major – The Big Bear) and the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor) both look like cups or cooking pots with long handles.

The position of constellations in the sky changes depending on the time of year and even the time of night. Although the stars in a constellation may seem to be close together from our perspective here on Earth, stars in the same constellation may be billions of kilometres apart in space.

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