![]() ![]() One of the oldest star groups, called a constellation, is made up of seven stars, known as the Big Dipper or the Great Bear. The stories include a great bear, a little bear, a king, a queen, and their daughter. Our first books is the Story of the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper in a book called The Story of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor: A Roman Constellation MythĮvery night of summer there are dramatic stories being played out in the night sky. ![]() Constellations and Star Legends for Kids: Book Recommendations Here are three wonderful Kidlit books and one activity to help Homeschoolers & Distance Learners discover Constellations and Star Legends in the night sky (in a memorable way). It is also filled with legend, lore, and chances to educate the next generation on the vast beauty of our starry skies.īooks are an amazing way to catch the interest of kids. ![]() The constellation may have had a similar meaning in ancient China, where it was significant at least 2,000 years ago, when it showed up in carvings.The night sky is fascinating. The idea of the Big Dipper may be a little more modern, at least the way it’s talked about in North America, though the origins of that interpretation are uncertain. But these stars are also interpreted similarly by several Indigenous cultures in North America. The Great Bear was mentioned in the Old Testament and in Homer’s Iliad. The latter star also makes up the end of the handle of the Little Dipper.Įven back in ancient Greece and the Middle East, the stars that make up the Big Dipper were actually just part of a larger constellation known as Ursa Major, or the Great Bear. Perhaps for this reason, the recognizable star pattern has been used by sailors and other travelers to determine which way is north at night - the front lip of the Dipper points in a straight line towards the North Star, or Polaris. The Big Dipper, which is considered an asterism, is nearly always above the horizon at night as long as you are north of the 35th parallel. One of the most widely recognized star groupings in the night sky carries a number of different interpretations, depending on the culture and time period you’re talking about. Below are a few examples of ancient constellations and asterisms that we do know well, and what they meant to the cultures that connected their astral dots. Unfortunately, many stellar groupings that some ancient cultures recognized are still not well understood by modern scholars, although we have identified some of their names and corresponding hieroglyphs or the role these stars played in calendar systems. “Yet there are striking similarities in asterisms across cultures, and groupings such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Pleiades, and the Southern Cross are widely recognized across many different cultures.” “Cultures around the world organize stars into constellations or asterisms, and these groupings are often considered to be arbitrary and culture specific,” wrote the authors of a recent paper published in Psychological Science. They represent early examples of humanity’s preoccupation with symbolism in the world around us, as well as how even vastly different cultures have sometimes interpreted the sky in similar ways. ![]() Some of these cultural references go back thousands of years, and are possibly even older. Nonetheless, past cultures have often connected the dots of various stars in different ways - representing everything from the myths of creation to legendary figures and godlike animals, depending on the viewer. But what rarely changes, at least on human timescales, are the stars above us. Civilizations come and go, with some lasting mere decades while others endure for millennia. ![]()
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