Looking at the stars and “seeing” a great bear or a mighty hunter has sparked the imagination of people around the world throughout history.
Cultures as distant from one another as the Mayans, the Egyptians, and the Chinese all “invented” constellations. Unknown to one another, these people sometimes invented the same constellations! Constellations are groups of stars that form a familiar pattern, such as a bear, a lion, or a scorpion. The stars we see are all in the Milky Way. They are light-years apart, but from our perch on Earth, we see them as a set.
