Constellations: cultural meanings, history, and the 88 official star regions
Explore constellations: how cultures worldwide interpreted star patterns, their roles in myth and navigation, and the modern mapping that divides the sky into 88 official star regions, plus the Zodiac and Ophiuchus.
A constellation is a set of stars that people visually join into a familiar shape on the celestial sphere. Different cultures have interpreted these star patterns as animals, figures from myth, or everyday objects; the same arrangement of stars can carry very different meanings from one tradition to another.
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Names and examples
Many constellations in the Western tradition take their names from classical mythology or ancient storytelling. Well-known examples include:
History and modern definition
The term comes from Latin elements meaning “together” plus “stars.” Many of the familiar Western names and stories were inherited from Greek astronomy and later classical sources. Over centuries, mariners and farmers also used constellations to mark seasons and find directions.
In modern astronomy the sky has been divided into a fixed set of regions, each assigned to a constellation. International authorities established an official list and defined precise borders so every point on the sky belongs to one of the 88 recognized constellations.
European navigators and star cataloguers added constellations that appear only from southern latitudes; for example, the constellation Antlia is named for an air pump — a device unfamiliar to the ancients in Europe but introduced later when naming stars in the southern sky.
The Zodiac
A special group of constellations lies along the plane of the ecliptic and is collectively called the Zodiac. The apparent path of the Sun carries it through these constellations over the course of a year. Astronomically, the Sun also passes through the constellation Ophiuchus, the bearer of a serpent, but Ophiuchus is not normally included among the twelve signs used in most astrological systems.
Definition constellation - asterism
An asterism (from Latin astrum from Greek ἄστρον astron "constellation, star, star") is the name given in astronomy to a group of (usually bright) stars which - linked by imaginary connecting lines ("asterisms") - form a conspicuous shape or figure in the sky. An asterism may be part of a constellation and consist of adjacent stars (examples include the Big Dipper as part of the constellation of the Big Dipper, or the "belt" of Orion); it may also include conspicuous stars of different constellations, such as the Summer Triangle or the Winter Hexagon, whose stars are distributed over a large part of the sky. Characteristic of an asterism is its conspicuousness, so faint, inconspicuous constellations are not asterisms. Occasionally, however, historical constellations that were once recorded on star charts, such as the constellation "Ship Argo", are called asterisms.
In addition, in the mapping systems of other cultures, such as ancient Indian or Chinese astronomy or that of the Mayas, there are constellations in which completely different figures are recognized.
Meaning of the constellations
Constellations only present themselves subjectively to the observer. The impression that the stars of a constellation are close together in the sky is based on the projection effect.
The twelve signs of the zodiac, which go back to the Babylonian constellations of the ecliptic, form one of the foundations of astrology. However, since the constellations have since shifted by about 30 degrees due to precession against the zodiacal signs, they no longer coincide, and Western astrology generally rejects the interpretation based on actual constellations (sidereal astrology) (Zodiac).
Constellations and asterisms also appear in Greek teaching poems on the course of the year and agriculture, where they are used to divide the seasons.
In astronomy, constellations were already used in star catalogues from antiquity to indicate position. Still around 1800 star catalogues divide the celestial objects into constellations, but soon thereafter one goes over to a pure position indication with right ascension and declination. But the astronomical nomenclature of the visible stars in the Bayer/Flamsteed code of 1603 and 1712 apart from their trivial names is still based on this system of the areas of the starry sky, like for example Alpha Centauri after the constellation of the Centaur.
Despite their relatively minor importance today, constellations have lost none of their fascination for the observer of a dark starry sky and play an important role in the popularization of astronomy. The didactics of astronomy uses them - in connection with the associated star sagas - to inspire young people for "stargazing" and to introduce them to modern astronomy on the basis of historical developments.
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AlegsaOnline.com Constellations: cultural meanings, history, and the 88 official star regions Leandro Alegsa
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