Ever wonder about the stars? Well, if you look closely you may see certain shapes. These are called “constellations”, and they were invented by ancient people that looked in the sky and saw shapes in the stars.
It wasn’t just one race that identified these, it was lots of ancient cultures. The first direct evidence of these occurrences was found in Mesopotamia in 3000 BC. Then came astronomers from China, India, the Islamic Empire, Egypt, and Greece (Grecian constellations were mainly based off the ones from Mesopotamia, and we still use those today).
Early Constellations
Constellations are measured by size in square degrees, and the constellation that takes up the most square degrees is called Hydra. Constellations are categorized by families, and Hydra is a constellation in the Her family, along with Hercules (the main constellation in the family), Centaurus, Ophiuchus, and many others. The sky is divided up into 8 sections, 4 quadrants in the north and 4 quadrants in the south. All constellations fall into 1 of those sections.
Dark cloud constellations are just dark patches in the Great Rift, which consists of a group of those patches in the galaxy. These are better observed in the southern hemisphere. These can be seen better when the Milky Way is darker, because these can cast shadows on the ground.
The Aboriginal “Emu in the sky”.
In Western astronomy terms, the Southern Cross is on the right, and Scorpius on the left; the head of the emu is the Coalsack.
There are about 88 well-known constellations out there in the sky, maybe you will see some of them!
Another great site for information
G’day Isaac,
I learnt a lot about constellations from reading your post. I recently downloaded a couple of apps on my iPad that show the stars in the night sky. It is great to use when out stargazing.
Hello Isaac!
Thanks for the reply. My teacher, Ms. Smith, is very skilled in the “arts of blogging”. This is my first year of blogging, I have participated in the Student Blogging Challenge, earlier in the year, so it’s my first year too! In school at the moment we are doing the ‘Hour of Code’ program, I personally love this because I am huge tech geek. In science, we are doing chemistry and earlier in the year we did the Canadian government, because at the time it was the Canadian election.
Thanks,
~Owen
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