Concept in Definition ABC

The constellation known as the Big Dipper has several names. In the United States it is known as "the big ladle", in France it is "the saucepan", in Great Britain "the plow", ancient Egyptians saw a procession consisting of a bull, a horizontal man and a hippopotamus, in the Europe medieval it was known as "el carro" or "la carreta de Carlos". These different names show that the stars that make up this constellation can be joined with imaginary lines creating figures very different.

The ancient Greeks and the native peoples of North America saw in this group of stars a large bear. Fans of astronomy they call it "the car." In astronomical terminology, the figures associated with star constellations are known by the term asterisms.

Some curiosities about the Big Dipper

In the northern hemisphere it is visible throughout the year and near the Equator it can be seen from April to June. This constellation has the most famous visual double star in the sky: Mizar and Alcor.

In the constellation Ursa Major is M81 or Bode galaxy, a spiral-type galaxy that is 12 million years away light from the Earth and that is widely studied by astronomers (it is estimated that this galaxy could contain about 250 billion stars).

Like other asterisms, this one had great importance in the history of navigation (in Homer's Odyssey It is recalled that Ulysses observed this constellation at night so as not to get lost on his way back to the home).

This constellation formed by seven main stars was already known to the men of the paleolithic and in this sense it is believed that its observation she was decisive for humans to cross the Bering Strait and reach the continent American.

In Greek mythology the god Zeus seduced a nymph named Callisto who lived in the forests of Arcadia. When Hera, Zeus's wife, heard of her husband's infidelity, she became so jealous of her rival that she decided to turn her into a bear and send her to heaven forever.

This mythological tale in which a character transforms into a star is an example of catasterism (in such a process, the characters or events of mythology end up becoming constellations because there are a likeness between the figure in the starry sky and the mythological story).

Some of the best known stars of the Big Dipper

All its stars have had their own name since ancient times. On the bear's back is Dubhe and the Chinese know her as the pivot of the sky.

On the back of the animal is the star Merak (the ancient Greeks knew it as Helike, in China it is the armillary sphere and for the Hindus it was Pulaba).

The star Precda corresponds to the thigh of the bear.

The head of the queue is Megrez. Talitha Borealis and Talitha Australis are the names of the stars that correspond to the legs of the bear.

The asterism that makes up Ursa Major has a total of seven stars.