Nancy Papp, age 12, of Wetland, Ontario, for her question:

Who named the constellations?

The constellation of Orion, the heavenly hunter, is mentioned in the Old Testament Book of Job. Other constellations were also named thousands of years ago and their names have been handed down from generation to generation. Some were named by the people of ancient Mesopotamia., some by the people of Arabia and some by the Greeks.

Human beings have always been born star gazers. Some merely admired the starry sky, others looked for order in the vast and changing heavens. And, who knows, some of the ancient star gazers may have dreamed that mankind would one day cross the oceans of space and visit other worlds. In any case, star gazers, like everyone else, wanted to talk with each other and compare notes on their common interest.
It is not easy to point out one particular star in the star studded sky. Most likely the constellations were invented to solve this problem. It is much easier to point out a group of stars forming a particular design which can be identified. It is easy to point out the Big Dipper constellation because it looks somev'aat like a dipper, a bowl with a long, carved handle.
To the ancient star gazers, the Big Dipper was known as Ursa Major   the big bear. The Little Dipper was the Ursa Minor. The ancients tended to invent elaborate designs for the constellations and old star maps are so full of fanciful drawings of people arid animals that the stars themselves often get lost. Many of the figures date back to heroes that lived before the dawn of history. Others are animals which might date back even farther to the totems of ancient tribes.
The main constellations were most likely devised by the Mesopotamians who studied the starry desert skies. This was many thousands of years ago and no one can set the exact date. Later, the Greeks borrowed the constellations from Mesopotamia, made some changes and additions of their own. In 270 B.C. we know that the Greeks had defined 48 constellations for their star charts. They also gave special names to a few of the brightest stars. The names of Sirius and Capella come to us from Greek and Latin. The bright stars Aldebaran and Deneb were named by the ancient star gazing Arabs.
The ancient method of naming the constellations has been carried on to the present. Astronomers chart the skies with the help of 88 constellations. However, our charts are more orderly than those of the ancients. Our constellations are neatly outlined in parts of circles and do not tangle with each other, sprawling all over the sky. The individual stars are named with letters of the Greek alphabet in the order of their brightness. Sirius is Alpha of Canis Major.