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Constellation

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Constellation

	Since long ago, people around the world have associated the heavens, the stars, and the patterns they make in the sky with their gods and goddesses. Links from this page will take you to descriptions of the role of selected stars, star patterns, and related gods and goddesses in various cultures.
The unvarying aspect of the relationships of the stars' positions may have suggested to the ancients something that was analogous to their beliefs about the universe. It is not surprising that they chose to express their beliefs metaphorically, believing that groups of stars, constellations, and moving planets were associated with their deeply held stories of the creation, sustenance, and destruction of the universe. Human beings, even now, use metaphor to express deeply held beliefs, in the poetry and art of societies. In more modern times some of the ancient designations for star arrangements have remained, giving us a flavor of what the world felt like when the sky was "closer". The names, positions and groupings of stars help us to give order to the sky in our minds.
	Constellations are formed of bright stars which appear close to each other on the sky, but are really far apart in space. The shapes you see all depend on your point of view. Many societies saw patterns among the stars with gods and goddesses or stories from their culture. Most of the constellations with which we are familiar come from ancient Greece. But other civilizations created their own patterns in the sky based on stories and people that were important to them. Many peoples noticed that the planets, the moon, and comets moved through the sky in a different way than the stars. Because of the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun, we divide the constellations into two groups. Some constellations never rise nor set, and they are called circumpolar. All the rest are divided into seasonal constellations. Which constellations will be circumpolar and which seasonal depends on your latitude.