Stellar Constellations and their Shapes etc?

Question

I know it's possible to buy books which give us the names of the various star constellations. 'The Plough', 'The Great Dipper' etc. But there is nothing obvious that makes these individual stars join together in such constellations. How did these stars come to be known by such names ? Who and when was this decided ? And are the constellations different in shape or even in their arrangements to, say, those of the ancient Chinese, or the ancient Egyptians ? If not, how could such arrangements have been universally accepted ?

Answer 1

I don't know if this was implied in your question, but over time even the shapes of the constellations themselves change. Stars have a 'proper motion' which moves them all the time relative to Sol, so the constellations warp a little bit. The brighter stars are both more likely to be nearer (usually) and major components of the constellations, and thus due to their distance, have higher proper motions.

Given a few thousand years, the constellation The Swan might start to look like The Donut, or when primitive man 10,000 years ago looked at it: The Rock with a hole in it.

Answer 2

In western civilization, the constellations come to us via Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. Other cultures, such as the Chinese, have their own, different traditions. Also, the western constellations have varied over time - for example, Libra was once the claws of Scorpius, and Coma Berenices was the tail of Leo. The fainter constellations (e.g. Monoceros, Camelopardelis, Scutum) are relatively modern inventions; for a time, makers of star atlases felt free to invent their own constellations.

The current list of 88 constellations and their boundaries was officially adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1933.

Answer 3

The ancient Greeks' astronomy is the origin of our modern constellations. And many star names comes from the ancient Arabs. You are right, about many constellation shapes have no sense to give it a name. We use those stellar arrangements and names (in the northern hemisphere) from the Greeks because our civilization comes most from they. For the southern sky, the Europeans defined the arrangement (constellations) and named it most in Latin or Greek after the century XVI.

Answer 4

Ancient norse constellations had different names; as did chinese. The boundaries/shape of the constellations changes over time even for the ones we think we know well.
The constellations are decided these days by agreement amongst members of the International Astronomical Union(IAU).

Answer 5

well basically with all the stars in the sky you could make any shape you want. over the centuries societies have just randomly noticed patterns in stars that slightly looked like an object.

if you looked at the stars long enough im sure you could find a pattern of stars that looks like a telephone making love to a pepsi can on top of the empire state building. and im serious, im sure you could...

Answer 6

Hi. One example is Orion. Most cultures see a hunter of some sort. May have been shepherds in the fields.