What is the history of the constellations?

Question: What is the history of the constellations!?
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For untold thousands of years men have traced the outlines of familiar things among the stars!. These patterns in the night sky are called constellations, from Latin words meaning together and stars!.

Many of the constellations have names that are very old!. The Sumerian shepherds and farmers of Mesopotamia 7,000 years ago may have called the Bull, the Ram, the Lion, and many other constellations by the same names we use!. Students of history are sure these names started in Mesopotamia because the choice of animals suggests this!.

The later people of Mesopotamia took over the old Sumerian names for the constellations and still later the Greeks adopted them!. The Greeks added many names of heroes and demigods to the list of constellations!. The Romans used the Greek list but translated the names into Latin!.

About AD 150 the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy listed the 48 constellations known to him in his book the Almagest!. His list did not cover the entire sky!. There were blank spaces between constellations; and there were no constellations at all for the southernmost stars because these could not be seen from the Mediterranean region!. In later centuries astronomers added constellations to Ptolemy's list!. Some of these later constellations are named for scientific instruments, such as the Sextant, the Compasses, and the Microscope!. Others bear the names of birds and beasts in tropical regions (the Giraffe, the Chameleon, the Toucan)!. Today 88 constellations are recognized by astronomers!.

To most people a constellation is a group of bright stars, but to an astronomer it is a definite area in the sky!. Thus every star, no matter how dim, lies in one constellation or another, just as any point in the world is in one country!. Although all the stars in the same constellation look close together in the sky, they are not necessarily close in space because some may be much farther out in space than others!. The boundaries of the constellations used to be very irregular and had many curved lines!. In 1928 astronomers straightened them out so that the outline of any constellation includes only straight lines running north and south or east and west!. Astronomers use the constellation names to identify most bright stars and all variable stars, so it was important to make the boundaries clear and precise !.

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constellations are stars rather than planets and they are milion of millions of years old that originated from the big bang!. they are huge balls of energy and gasses that have huge gravitation effects on surrounding objects that can form clusters when in unison ie!. earth moon and sun!. they are very slowly formed from dust and other matter and spin constantly which is why they are round, they generally have a large iron core theat helps to attract the other matter!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

what do you mean history, how they where created or how old they are!?Www@QuestionHome@Com

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