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Constellations

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The constellations of the night sky.

astronomyconstellations

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Constellation

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  1. 1Constellation
    An area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object
  2. 2How many constellations are officially recognized today?
    88 constellations, formally accepted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
  3. 3Zodiac constellations
    Twelve (or thirteen) ancient constellations straddling the ecliptic, which the Sun, Moon, and planets all traverse
  4. 4How many traditional constellations did Ptolemy list?
    48 constellations, consisting of the zodiac and 36 more (now 38, following the division of Argo Navis into three)
  5. 5Origin of the word 'constellation'
    From the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, meaning 'set of stars', entering Middle English in the 14th century
  6. 6Ancient Greek word for constellation
    ἄστρον (astron)
  7. 7Circumpolar constellation
    A constellation or star that never sets below the horizon when viewed from a particular latitude on Earth
  8. 8Do stars in constellations appear near each other?
    They can appear near each other in the sky, but they usually lie at a variety of distances away from Earth
  9. 9Do constellations change over time?
    Yes, since each star has independent motion, all constellations will change slowly over tens to hundreds of thousands of years
  10. 10Asterism
    A star pattern or group that is not a constellation under the formal definition, but is used by observers to navigate the night sky
  11. 11Examples of asterisms
    The teapot within Sagittarius, or the Big Dipper in Ursa Major
  12. 12Can asterisms span multiple constellations?
    Yes, asterisms may be several stars within a constellation, or they may share stars with more than one constellation
  13. 13Zodiacal constellations of the northern sky
    Pisces, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, and Leo
  14. 14Zodiacal constellations of the southern sky
    Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus, and Aquarius
  15. 15Ecliptic
    The apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of a year, along which zodiac constellations are distributed
  16. 16Polaris
    The North Star, the approximate center of the northern celestial hemisphere, part of Ursa Minor at the end of the Little Dipper's handle
  17. 17Used to find the southern pole star
    The Southern Cross in Crux and the 'Southern Pointers' (Alpha and Beta Centauri) of Centaurus
  18. 18Sigma Octantis
    The closest star approximating a southern pole star, but it is faint in the night sky
  19. 19Earliest generally accepted evidence for constellations
    Inscribed stones and clay tablets from Mesopotamia dating to 3000 BC
  20. 20Oldest Babylonian catalogues of stars called
    The Three Stars Each texts and the MUL.APIN, dating back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age
  21. 21How many Ptolemaic constellations are from the Ancient Near East?
    Twenty Ptolemaic constellations, with another ten having the same stars but different names
  22. 22What Biblical book makes reference to constellations?
    The Book of Job, referencing 'Ayish 'bier', chesil 'fool', and chimah 'heap', rendered as Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades
  23. 23Almagest
    Ptolemy's 2nd century work that became the basis of Western astronomy taught during Late Antiquity and until the Early Modern period
  24. 24Zodiac of Dendera
    The oldest known depiction of the zodiac showing all now familiar constellations, along with some Egyptian constellations, decans, and planets
  25. 25Did Ancient China have independent constellation systems?
    Yes, the Chinese system developed independently from the Greco-Roman system, though there may have been earlier mutual influence
  26. 26Twenty-Eight Mansions
    A categorization of Chinese star names found on oracle bones from Anyang, dating back to the middle Shang dynasty
  27. 27Suzhou Astronomical Chart
    A well-known Song period star map prepared on a stone plate with carvings of stars on a planisphere, showing the 1054 supernova in Taurus
  28. 28Farnese Atlas
    The oldest representation of star charts surviving as a statue, based perhaps on the star catalogue of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus
  29. 29Uranometria
    A 1603 star atlas by Johann Bayer that assigned stars to individual constellations and formalized the division using Bayer designations
  30. 30Bayer designations
    A system of assigning Greek and Latin letters to stars within each constellation, created by Johann Bayer

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