What are constellations and what is the need for this?|Technospace

 First of all, a star is a ball of tremendously hot ball of gas, which produces heat and light from nuclear reaction within its core.

The prominent srars togetherly forms patterns. These patterns are known as constellations. From the Earth, the stars in a constellations may look quite close to one another, but in reality they are extremely far apart. All constellations can be seen with the naked eye, though what you can see depends on the time of the year and the geographical position. Many of them are named after characters which are taken from the ancient Greek myths.

There are millions and millions of constellations of different stars and different patterns. But, only few constellations is being seen by us. Only 88 constellations can be seen by us.  Out of this 48 constellations are detected by Ptolemy.

There are 12 zodiac signs which are only originated from constellations. 

Here are few constellations, 

● Ursa Major, is also known as Big Dipper is a prominent constellation. It is made of 7 stars in the northern celestial hemisphere. 

● Another well-known constellation is the Ursa Minor or Small Dipper. This also has seven prominent stars in it.

● Cassiopeia is another prominent constellation in the northern sky. It is visible during winter in the early partvof the night. It looks like a distorted form of the letter W or M.

● When we spot three bright stars in a row on a winter evening, we exclaim, 'Oh! that's a part of the Orion!' Orion is one of the magnificent constellation in the sky. It has seven bright stars. Four of these appear to be arranged in the form of a 'quadrilateral ' and the other three form a straight line in the middle. One of the largest star, known as Betalgeuse, is situated on one of the corner while another bright star, called Rigel, is located on its opposite site.

Other constellations are,

● Hydrus

● Eridanus

● Phoenix

● Octane

● Crux

● Lupus

● Pavo

● Pictor

● Scorpius 

● and many more

□ The constellation Scorpius can be seen in the Souther Hemisphere. 

□ The Southern Constellation is a large group of 32 constellation, many of them named during the age of exploration that followed the voyages of columbus in 1492.

□ Hydrus is the largest constellation covering 3.15% of the sky.

□ Monoceros is a constellation which represents unicorn. 

□ Crux is the smallest constellation. 

What are the purposes of constellation ?

From ancient times, our ancestors are noticing the constellations.  They are worshipping the constellations, thinking that they are the designs made by the God. 

The 'shapes' of the constellations have been defined by us only. Poets, farmers and astronomers have made up these shapes over the past 6000 years.

Constellation have been used as memoryaids. They are helpful for sailors travellers, etc to navigate direction. The msin purpose of the constellations was to help them identify different stars and their location in the sky at night.