Constellation

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This article is about the star grouping. For other uses, see Constellation (disambiguation).

Four views of the constellation Orion:

  • Top: Baroque drawing of Orion from
    Book of Fixed Stars
    (right)
  • Bottom: Contemporary map of Orion from the IAU (left); and photograph of the night sky with drawn lines (right)

A constellation is 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.[1]

The origins of the earliest constellations likely go back to

mythology. Different cultures and countries invented their own constellations, some of which lasted into the early 20th century before today's constellations were internationally recognized. The recognition of constellations has changed significantly over time. Many changed in size or shape. Some became popular, only to drop into obscurity. Some were limited to a single culture or nation. Naming constellations also helped astronomers and navigators identify stars more easily.[2]

Twelve (or thirteen) ancient constellations belong to the

Metamorphoses of the Latin poet Ovid. Constellations in the far southern sky were added from the 15th century until the mid-18th century when European explorers began traveling to the Southern Hemisphere
. Due to Roman and European transmission, each constellation has a Latin name.

In 1922, the

astronomical naming systems include the constellation where a given celestial object is found to convey its approximate location in the sky. The Flamsteed designation
of a star, for example, consists of a number and the genitive form of the constellation's name.

Other star patterns or groups called

Ursa Major.[6][7]

Terminology

The word constellation comes from the Late Latin term cōnstellātiō, which can be translated as "set of stars"; it came into use in Middle English during the 14th century.[8] The Ancient Greek word for constellation is ἄστρον (astron). These terms historically referred to any recognisable pattern of stars whose appearance was associated with mythological characters or creatures, earthbound animals, or objects.[1] Over time, among European astronomers, the constellations became clearly defined and widely recognised. Today, there are 88 IAU designated constellations.[9]

A constellation or star that never sets below the

circumpolar. Depending on the definition, equatorial constellations may include those that lie between declinations 45° north and 45° south,[10] or those that pass through the declination range of the ecliptic or zodiac ranging between 23½° north, the celestial equator, and 23½° south.[11][12]

Stars in constellations can appear near each other in the sky, but they usually lie at a variety of distances away from the Earth. Since each star has its own independent motion, all constellations will change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, familiar outlines will become unrecognizable.[13] Astronomers can predict the past or future constellation outlines by measuring individual stars' common proper motions or cpm[14] by accurate astrometry[15][16] and their radial velocities by astronomical spectroscopy.[17]

Identification

The 88 constellations recognized by the

H.A. Rey, who wrote popular books on astronomy, pointed out the imaginative nature of the constellations and their mythological and artistic basis, and the practical use of identifying them through definite images, according to the classical names they were given.[20]

History of the early constellations

Lascaux Caves, southern France

It has been suggested that the 17,000-year-old cave paintings in Lascaux, southern France, depict star constellations such as Taurus, Orion's Belt, and the Pleiades. However, this view is not generally accepted among scientists.[21][22]

Mesopotamia

Inscribed stones and clay writing tablets from Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) dating to 3000 BC provide the earliest generally accepted evidence for humankind's identification of constellations.[23] It seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC. Mesopotamian constellations appeared later in many of the classical Greek constellations.[24]

Ancient Near East

See also:
Old Babylonian astronomy
Babylonian tablet recording Halley's Comet in 164 BC

The oldest

Early Bronze Age.[25]

The classical Zodiac is a revision of

Neo-Babylonian constellations from the 6th century BC. The Greeks adopted the Babylonian constellations in the 4th century BC. Twenty Ptolemaic constellations are from the Ancient Near East. Another ten have the same stars but different names.[24]

Biblical scholar

KJV, but ‘Ayish "the bier" actually corresponding to Ursa Major.[29] The term Mazzaroth מַזָּרוֹת, translated as a garland of crowns, is a hapax legomenon
in Job 38:32, and it might refer to the zodiacal constellations.

Classical antiquity

See also: Egyptian astronomy and Ancient Greek astronomy
Egyptian star chart and decanal clock, from the ceiling of Senenmut's tomb, c. 1473 BC

There is only limited information on ancient Greek constellations, with some fragmentary evidence being found in the

Early Modern period is the Almagest by Ptolemy
, written in the 2nd century.

In the

planets.[23][32] Ptolemy's Almagest remained the standard definition of constellations in the medieval period both in Europe and in Islamic astronomy
.

Ancient China

Further information: Chinese constellations and Chinese astronomy
Chinese star map with a cylindrical projection (Su Song
)

oracle bones from Anyang, dating back to the middle Shang dynasty. These constellations are some of the most important observations of Chinese sky, attested from the 5th century BC. Parallels to the earliest Babylonian (Sumerian) star catalogues suggest that the ancient Chinese system did not arise independently.[34]

Three schools of classical

medieval Islamic astronomy (see Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era).[34] As maps were prepared during this period on more scientific lines, they were considered as more reliable.[35]

A well-known map from the Song period is the Suzhou Astronomical Chart, which was prepared with carvings of stars on the planisphere of the Chinese sky on a stone plate; it is done accurately based on observations, and it shows the supernova of the year of 1054 in Taurus.[35]

Influenced by European astronomy during the late Ming dynasty, charts depicted more stars but retained the traditional constellations. Newly observed stars were incorporated as supplementary to old constellations in the southern sky, which did not depict the traditional stars recorded by ancient Chinese astronomers. Further improvements were made during the later part of the Ming dynasty by Xu Guangqi and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, the German Jesuit and was recorded in Chongzhen Lishu (Calendrical Treatise of Chongzhen period, 1628).[clarification needed] Traditional Chinese star maps incorporated 23 new constellations with 125 stars of the southern hemisphere of the sky based on the knowledge of Western star charts; with this improvement, the Chinese Sky was integrated with the World astronomy.[35][36]

Early modern astronomy

Historically, the origins of the constellations of the northern and southern skies are distinctly different. Most northern constellations date to antiquity, with names based mostly on Classical Greek legends.

star charts, whose oldest representation appears on the statue known as the Farnese Atlas, based perhaps on the star catalogue of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus.[37] Southern constellations are more modern inventions, sometimes as substitutes for ancient constellations (e.g. Argo Navis). Some southern constellations had long names that were shortened to more usable forms; e.g. Musca Australis became simply Musca.[11]

Some of the early constellations were never universally adopted. Stars were often grouped into constellations differently by different observers, and the arbitrary constellation boundaries often led to confusion as to which constellation a celestial object belonged. Before astronomers delineated precise boundaries (starting in the 19th century), constellations generally appeared as ill-defined regions of the sky.[38] Today they now follow officially accepted designated lines of right ascension and declination based on those defined by Benjamin Gould in epoch 1875.0 in his star catalogue Uranometria Argentina.[39]

The 1603 star atlas "Uranometria" of Johann Bayer assigned stars to individual constellations and formalized the division by assigning a series of Greek and Latin letters to the stars within each constellation. These are known today as Bayer designations.[40] Subsequent star atlases led to the development of today's accepted modern constellations.

Origin of the southern constellations

See also: Uranometria, Harmonia Macrocosmica, and Former constellations
Sketch of the southern celestial sky by Portuguese astronomer João Faras (1 May 1500)
Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography, by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit

The southern sky, below about −65°

African circumnavigation expedition commissioned by Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II in c. 600 BC and those of Hanno the Navigator
in c. 500 BC.

The history of southern constellations is not straightforward. Different groupings and different names were proposed by various observers, some reflecting national traditions or designed to promote various sponsors. Southern constellations were important from the 14th to 16th centuries, when sailors used the stars for celestial navigation. Italian explorers who recorded new southern constellations include Andrea Corsali, Antonio Pigafetta, and Amerigo Vespucci.[28]

Many of the

Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who also split the ancient constellation Argo Navis into three; these new figures appeared in his star catalogue, published in 1756.[47]

Several modern proposals have not survived. The French astronomers

Quadrantid meteor shower), but is now divided between Boötes and Draco
.

88 modern constellations

Main article: IAU designated constellations

A list of 88 constellations was produced for the International Astronomical Union in 1922.[5] It is roughly based on the traditional Greek constellations listed by Ptolemy in his Almagest in the 2nd century and Aratus' work Phenomena, with early modern modifications and additions (most importantly introducing constellations covering the parts of the southern sky unknown to Ptolemy) by Petrus Plancius (1592, 1597/98 and 1613), Johannes Hevelius (1690) and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1763),[48][49][50] who introduced fourteen new constellations.[51] Lacaille studied the stars of the southern hemisphere from 1751 until 1752 from the Cape of Good Hope, when he was said to have observed more than 10,000 stars using a refracting telescope with an aperture of 0.5 inches (13 mm).

In 1922,

88 modern constellations, with contiguous boundaries[53] along vertical and horizontal lines of right ascension and declination developed by Eugene Delporte that, together, cover the entire celestial sphere;[5][54] this list was finally published in 1930.[4] Where possible, these modern constellations usually share the names of their Graeco-Roman predecessors, such as Orion, Leo or Scorpius. The aim of this system is area-mapping, i.e. the division of the celestial sphere into contiguous fields.[48]
Out of the 88 modern constellations, 36 lie predominantly in the northern sky, and the other 52 predominantly in the southern.

  • Equirectangular plot of declination vs right ascension of stars brighter than apparent magnitude 5 on the Hipparcos Catalogue, coded by spectral type and apparent magnitude, relative to the modern constellations and the ecliptic
    Equirectangular plot of declination vs right ascension of stars brighter than apparent magnitude 5 on the
    Hipparcos Catalogue
    , coded by spectral type and apparent magnitude, relative to the modern constellations and the ecliptic

The boundaries developed by Delporte used data that originated back to epoch

J2000, are already somewhat skewed and no longer perfectly vertical or horizontal.[56]
This effect will increase over the years and centuries to come.

Symbols

The constellations have no official symbols, though those of the ecliptic may take the signs of the zodiac.[57] Symbols for the other modern constellations, as well as older ones that still occur in modern nomenclature, have occasionally been published.[58]

Dark cloud constellations

Further information: Great Rift (astronomy) and Molecular cloud § List of molecular cloud complexes
star clouds
labeled in black.

The Great Rift, a series of dark patches in the

Coalsack, a dark nebula, instead of the stars.[63]

  • The Emu in the sky – a constellation defined by dark clouds rather than by stars. The head of the emu is the Coalsack with the Southern Cross directly above. Scorpius is to the left.
    The Emu in the sky – a constellation defined by dark clouds rather than by stars. The head of the emu is the Coalsack with the Southern Cross directly above. Scorpius is to the left.
  • Inca dark cloud constellations in the Mayu (Celestial River), also known as the Milky Way. The Southern Cross is above Yutu, while the eyes of the Llama are Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri.
    Inca dark cloud constellations in the Mayu (Celestial River), also known as the Milky Way. The Southern Cross is above Yutu, while the eyes of the Llama are Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri.

List of dark cloud constellations

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Definition of constellation". Oxford English Dictionary. Archived from the original on 2 January 2013. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  2. ^ "Constellation | Definition, Origin, History, & Facts | Britannica". 5 March 2024.
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    . [T]he zodiac was introduced between −408 and −397 and probably within a very few years of −400.
  4. ^ a b Delporte, Eugène (1930). Délimitation scientifique des constellations. International Astronomical Union.
  5. ^ a b c Ridpath, Ian (2018). "Star Tales: The final 88".
  6. ^ "DOCdb Deep Sky Observer's Companion – the online database". Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  7. ^ "A Complete List of Asterisms". Archived from the original on 29 September 2012. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  8. ^ "constellation | Origin and meaning of constellation by Online Etymology Dictionary". www.etymonline.com.
  9. ^ "Constellation". Oxford Dictionary of Astronomy. Retrieved 26 July 2019.
  10. ^ Harbord, John Bradley; Goodwin, H. B. (1897). Glossary of navigation: a vade mecum for practical navigators (3rd ed.). Portsmouth: Griffin. p. 142.
  11. ^ a b c Norton, Arthur P. (1959). Norton's Star Atlas. p. 1.
  12. ^ Steele, Joel Dorman (1884). "The story of the stars: New descriptive astronomy". Science series. American Book Company: 220. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  13. ^ "Do Constellations Ever Break Apart or Change?". NASA. Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Retrieved 27 November 2014.
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  18. ^ What Are the Constellations?, University of Wisconsin, http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/constellations.html
  19. ^ "Forest for the Trees – Why We Recognize Faces & Constellations". Nautilus Magazine. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
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Further reading

Mythology, lore, history, and archaeoastronomy

Atlases and celestial maps

Zubdat al-Tawarikh
)

General and nonspecialized – entire celestial heavens

Northern celestial hemisphere and north circumpolar region

Equatorial, ecliptic, and zodiacal celestial sky

  • Becvar, Antonin
    . (1958) Atlas Eclipticalis 1950.0, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved), Praha, Czechoslovakia, 1st Edition, elephant folio hardcover, with small transparency overlay coordinate grid square and separate paper magnitude legend ruler. 2nd Edition 1974, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved), Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Sky Publishing Corporation, Cambridge, MA, oversize folio softcover spiral-bound, with transparency overlay coordinate grid ruler.

Southern celestial hemisphere and south circumpolar region

  • Becvar, Antonin
    . Atlas Australis 1950.0, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved), Praha, Czechoslovakia, 1st Edition, hardcover, with small transparency overlay coordinate grid square and separate paper magnitude legend ruler. 2nd Edition, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Ceskoslovenske Akademie Ved), Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Sky Publishing Corporation, Cambridge, MA, oversize folio softcover spiral-bound, with transparency overlay coordinate grid ruler.

Catalogs

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Constellation&oldid=1218403498"