A constellation is a group of stars that seems to form a distinctive pattern in the sky.
The stars look close together but in reality, they are light years apart.
They are on the same line of sight.
This picture shows the constellation of Cassiopeia from Earth, it shows how the line of sight
makes the star seems close together but they are not they are many light years apart A
light year part is a distance that light travels in one year, it is about 9.5 x 10^12 km.
Star map shows constellations and individual stars, they represent the starts by using
dots of different sizes.
As you see, on this star map, there are many white dots, they are the stars, they have
different masses, that is why the size of the dots are different, the larger it is,
the brightness increases.
Zodiac signs have their own unique constellations, and they also have many different myth's
that explain each sign.
We chose the most interesting myths for each sign, and will now explain them.
Aries means "the ram" in Latin.
In Greek myth, Aries is identified with the golden ram that rescued Phrixus and took him
to Colchis, where he sacrificed the ram to the gods.
He placed the ram's skin in a temple, this was the Golden Fleece.
Taurus is an influential man pretending to be something he is not, in order to have affection.
It is a tale of abduction, he travels across the sea and he shows off of a tender but strong
side to a man that is fake.
This myth is about the birth of the twins, in which they weren't really Leda's sons.
Zeus fell in love with Nemesis, When she transformed into a goose, Zeus found her, became a swan
himself, and mated with her passionately.
As a result, two eggs hatched, which was found by Leda in the swamp.
Through a role of the giant crab, the god of the sea, put in charge to keep his nymphs
safe.
He got tricked by a "vampire squid" that he sent to save a couple of nymphs who got
away.
After the fight with the squid he was crippled and because of his immortality, in pain forever.
Leo was a lion that terrorized people.
There wasn't any way to defeat him because of his impenetrable skin that couldn't be
punctured.
Heracles went to kill the Lion.
He strangled it, using his own claws
Virgo was linked to the Greek and Roman goddesses of Agriculture, Demetres and Ceres.
The ancient Greeks connected Virgo to Astraea, who was the last immortal to live with humans.
She left the Earth to flee from the wickedness of humanity.
Libra is best connected to Dike, the Greek goddess of justice, and the daughter of Zeus.
In service of her father, Dike was in charge of measuring the weight of human souls after
they passed away.
Her job was to punish souls and reward souls.
Orion threatened Artemis and her mother that he would kill every animal on our planet,
which made them angry enough to send a scorpion to kill Orion.
The scorpion kills Orion with his sting and Zeus raised them both to the stars.
Sagittarius is viewed as the satyr Crotus, the son of Pan.
He was considered a great huntsman and an even better musician.
Because of his talent for music, Muses requested that Zeus place him in the sky.
This is when Zeus gave him two horse feet, a tail and a bow with an arrow because of
his archery skills.
The myth of Capricorn is connected to Pan, the god of the wild.
Pan speaks of a gathering of gods that was interrupted by a monstrous giant.
Out of fear, all of the gods changed shape, while Pan jumped into the river Nile, turning
his legs into a tail of the fish, and his torso to a goat, to scare the monster away.
Ganymede a boy who was abducted by the gods because of his beauty and taken to Mount Olympus
where he replaced Hebe as Zeus' a cupbearer.
Hebe was Hera's daughter and the supreme goddess got angry because of this replacement.
Because of constant fighting, frustrated Zeus put Ganymede into the stars.
Pisces is represented by Aphrodite and her son Eros, who escaped from the monster Typhon
by leaping into the sea and transforming themselves into fish.
Ursa Major is the constellation that is known as the great bear, it contains 7 stars that
forms the big dipper.
The ancient Chinese saw the Big Dipper as a chariot for the emperor of the heavens,
the early Egyptians saw the thigh and leg of a bull.
North American Aboriginal cultures, saw the bowl of the Big Dipper as a bear.
The big Dipper's two end stars are called the pointer stars because they point toward
Polaris, the North star.
A long time ago, before the invention of the compas people used to use Polaris to tell
direction.
If you can see Polaris, then you know you are going north.
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