Eddie Kanady, aged 9, of Philadelphia,
How did the Big Bear star get its name?
Who ever heard of a bear with a long bushy tail? Up in the sky there are two such bears. You will need all your imagination to see them, For they are made entirely of stars. They are Big Bear and Little Bear. And they are two groups of stars that swing forever around and around Polaris, the North Pole star. Polaris is the big star at the very end of Little Bear's long tail. So actually, Little Bear swings around and around the tip of his own tail„
Men have been gazing at the stars since before the dawn of history. They have been keeping records of the stars and how they moved for many thousands of years. We are told that the stars had been charted and maps made of them as long ago as 2,000 years.
At first glance, you might think the stars are scattered all point out your favorite star to a follow star gazer. How could you explain which one you meant? You might say, the top one of those three that make a triangle. You would be grouping a cluster of stars to point out one special one.
This is what the star gazers of old did. They grouped the stars and gave the star groups names. One group might remind them a little of a dog, another of a bullss head, another of a bear. They made maps of the stars and drew pictures around the groups they had named. Often the pictures had to be twisted to cover all the stars in the group. The early astronomers were far more interested in pointing out stars than they were in drawing accurate pictures..
Sometimes a group of stars was named for a god or an ancient hero. More often than not, a story eras invented to go with the star picture afterwards, Sometimes objects were used to point out a group of stars. One group of stars reminded the ancients of a lyre, another of an arrow, another of a pair of scales. We still use these old names for the constellations ‑ the star groups, today,
When Big Bear and Little Bear were named we do not know for sure. It was certainly a long, long time ago. Nor do we know for sure who first named them. It must have been someone who didn't know that real down‑to‑earth bears wear short stubby tails. Or maybe this early artist star gazer just didn't care.
The Big Dipper is part of the Big Bear constellation. Its seven bright stars are among the first to light their lamps after sundown. Four stars form the bowl of the dipper, three swing off to make the curved handle. The two stars on the lip side of the Big Dipper are pointers. Aline through them leads almost directly to Polaris. And Polaris is always in the north direction. Countless travelers have used the ‑Big Dipper in Big Bear to find their way over land and sea.