What is a constellation? Detailed answer

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What is a constellation? Detailed answer

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What is a constellation?

Watching the stars, you probably noticed that they form letters, triangles, squares familiar to us. For a long time, in various parts of the world, man has given names to such groups of stars. Translated from Latin, "constellation" means "a group of stars."

The modern names of the constellations came to us from the ancient Romans, and to them - from ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks borrowed part of the information about the stars from the inhabitants of Babylon.

In Babylon, groups of stars were assigned the names of animals, the names of kings, queens, heroes of myths. Later, the ancient Greeks replaced many of the names given in Babylon with their own, using the names of their heroes - Hercules, Orion, Perseus. Ancient Rome made its own changes. We use the old names these days, but it's not always easy to imagine the images behind the names. For example, the constellations Eagle, Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, the constellation Libra do not really correspond to their names.

Around 150 AD, the famous astronomer Ptolemy noted 48 constellations that were known to him. This list did not include the constellations of the entire starry sky, there were many omissions. Therefore, later astronomers expanded the list compiled by Ptolemy. Some of these last constellations bear the names of scientific instruments, such as Sextant, Compass, Microscope. Today, astronomers know 88 constellations of the starry sky.

The constellation occupies a certain part of the sky. This means that each star is located in its own constellation, just as each city in the United States, for example, is located in a particular state. At one time, the boundaries of the constellations were inconsistent, often broken. In 1928, astronomers decided to straighten them so that the boundaries of the constellations form only straight lines.

Author: Likum A.

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