A map of the heavens - Unit 12

C2 Proficiency · Multiple Matching · Close-up C2 Workbook, National Geographic Learning

You are going to read an extract from an encyclopaedia entry on constellations. For questions 1–10, choose from the sections (A-E). The sections may be chosen more than once.

Our night sky has mesmerised humanity for millennia, and given mankind's desire to map the planet, it makes perfect sense that the heavens would be mapped as well. We can trace the first instances of constellations being recorded back to the ancient Babylonian civilisation of Mesopotamia, or present-day Iraq. There, archaeologists have uncovered stone and clay tablets inscribed in 3,000 BCE, and more recent ones display the groups upon which the stellar cartographers of ancient Greece based the classical stellar patterns with which we are familiar today. Their relevance in our modern world is essentially historical, as we now use navigational equipment to discern latitudinal and longitudinal positions. In the ancient world, however, the constellations served as beacons, directing ships and foot travellers alike to their destinations with efficiency.

Officially, there are 88 modern constellations recognised by the International Astronomical Union, or IAU. Of those, 48 were defined by the Greco-Egyptian writer, astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy in his astronomical treatise, the multi-chaptered Almagest, in the 2nd century. Given Ptolemy resided in the Northern Hemisphere, his celestial coordinate system was limited to this region alone. This was also true for the Babylonians, the ancient Chinese and the Arabs, all of whom catalogued their own stellar patterns but were equatorially situated to the north. For that reason, constellations of the Southern Hemisphere were not identified until several centuries later; in the 1500s to 1800s. Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman were the first to designate new ones. More were to come, but not all were accepted; for example, Quadrans Muralis, created by French astronomer Jerome Lalande, never took hold, but to this day the Quadrantid meteor shower retains the obsolete constellation's name.

The names of constellations arose more from symbolism rather than their actual appearance and as constellations fell under different naming systems in different civilisations, their names reveal characteristics of who made them. One of the most recognisable constellations is known as the Plough in the UK because to the inhabitants of this region, it looked like a plough, which can be vaguely seen in how the bottom grouping of stars looks like the device used to till soil and the top grouping looks like the part that is used to push it. In the US, it is known as the Big Dipper; as to people there, it seemed more like a ladle. To the Mayas, it was called a parrot and the Egyptians saw it as the limbs of a bull. The ancient Romans called it Ursae Majoris, or Greater Bear, a version of which, Ursa Major, serves as the official name with the IAU.

Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern civilisations all crafted their own systems of constellations, which both influenced and were influenced by Western systems. Parallels between Babylonian and ancient Chinese catalogues demonstrate that their systems influenced each other's development. Akin to our Zodiacal constellations were the Twenty-Eight Mansions, a representation of Chinese astrology based on lunar movements, rather than the sun. Evidence of Indian astronomy originated in the Indus Valley Civilisation in the north-western Indian subcontinent, a civilisation which thrived in the 3rd millennium BCE. In contrast to these two civilisations, Islamic astronomy was developed during the Islamic Golden Age, an era that spanned from the 8th to 15th centuries. The Arabs crafted thousands of manuscripts devoted to astronomy and dozens of celestial bodies are still referred to by their Arabic names.

That said, with the advent of navigational systems, the constellations are decidedly less relevant today, at least diurnally. In the field of astronomy, however, scientists habitually refer to them as place markers for new discoveries, such as an exoplanet, quasar, pulsar, black hole or other celestial body unknown up until now. Naturally, constellations could only be used to determine what part of the sky an astronomer would peer into to see the object. Our view of the constellations exists in a two-dimensional plane, but in galactic space, the group of stars in a single constellation are often hundreds of light-years away from one another. In fact, because all the objects of the night sky are in constant motion and are eternally moving away or towards one another, the constellations we have come to know and love today will, in tens to hundreds of thousands of years, be unrecognisable, scattering like cosmic mist across our vast universe.

A map of the heavens

a unit of measurement designating a thousand years

a spectacular event in the night sky

imaginary lines that mark the Earth

a pattern of travel defined by the moon

people whose job it is to make maps

something characterised as being flat

an instrument used in farming

a smaller part of a very large piece of land

a place name in the Middle East

a single, very large piece of writing

In which section are the following mentioned?

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