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Welcome to our Physics lesson on The Brightest Stars and Constellations, this is the fifth lesson of our suite of physics lessons covering the topic of Orientation in the Sky and Constellations, you can find links to the other lessons within this tutorial and access additional physics learning resources below this lesson.
It is a well established fact that there are billions of stars in the universe. However, we can see only a few thousands of them (the brightest ones) even on a clear moonless night sky. Some stars that appear closer to each other form different patterns when we connect them usinf our mind. Since antiquity, people have associated specific patterns to each group of stars. In general, these patterns bear the names of famous mythological figures of ancient civilization. They had their own method of sky division in pictorial elements. The sets of stars forming such imaginary figures were called constellations. All of them are in the Milky Way galaxy.
Constellations were very useful for the orientation of people travelling at night. However, there is a serious drawback in their use as each nation used their own names and patterns for constellations. Hence, an international agreement was reached at the beginning of 19th century to unify the names and patterns formed by the constellations. By agreement there are, in total, 88 constellations that divide the sky into regions according to the most confirmed figures formed in the sky. These constellations are similar to addresses for the sky.
You have reached the end of Physics lesson 22.8.5 The Brightest Stars and Constellations. There are 8 lessons in this physics tutorial covering Orientation in the Sky and Constellations, you can access all the lessons from this tutorial below.
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