Understanding The Constellations

When we look into the sky at night, we can see some stars. These stars produce their own light which makes them visible from the Earth. Thousands of years ago people had observed that groups of stars formed shapes or images. 


We can imagine that lines can be drawn joining one star to another to form shapes or images. The arrangements of a group of stars which form a certain shapes or image is known as a constellation. 


Astronomers named the constellation after mythical animals or heroes because the shapes of these constellations look like them. These constellations include Scorpio, Orion, Big Dipper and Southern Cross.