The Creation of Stars

These days, it is hard to see stars and constellations, but in the past it was easy to see stars in the sky. These stars and constellations have interesting characteristics and have fun stories behind each of them.

Stars are created from clouds of gas and dust. When the gravitational contraction of the cloud raises the temperature at the center to the point where a nuclear fusion reaction occurs, a star is born. The process of a star formation takes around millions of years from the time the initial gas cloud starts to collapse until the star is created and shines like the sun. These stars explode someday and it is called a supernova. After the supernova explosion ends, the supernova shines brightly for several months. There are two things that are created after a supernova explosion, one is a neutron star and the other one is a black hole.

           There are constellations that are made with stars. A constellation is a thing that is named after a bright star based on its appearance from earth. In the East, it was believed that a world similar to the human world existed in heaven. So, it appears that constellations were created by connecting stars in a shape similar to the human world. For example, it was thought that the North Star was the Jade Emperor and that there was an imperial palace-shaped constellation around it. In the west, constellations were created around 3,000 B.C. by people living in Mesopotamia by connecting stars to create animal figures. It originated from what Mesopotamia people did, this was also brought to Greece and was given a name in combination with mythology.

Ancient Greeks gave a name to each of the constellations in a combination of Greek mythology. There are a lot of stories behind the constellations. Most of the names that are given is related a lot to the gods in Greek mythology. There is a fun myth in the constellation of Cassiopeia that helped their location. Cassiopeia was punished, and as punishment was hung upside down on a chair for half a day because of her arrogance. So, there is a story that the letter ‘W’ is like Cassiopeia sitting on a chair and hanging upside down.

Stars and constellations have interesting facts. When stars die, some new stars are born and behind each constellation there are many fun mythological stories to tell.