The Big Dipper are stars, they are all in the Milky Way, and they are one of the hundreds of millions of stars in the Milky Way.
The Sun is an ordinary star in the Milky Way, and with the exception of a few supernovae and deep-space objects, the stars we see in the night sky at night are all stars, and they are all located in the Milky Way. The Milky Way is at least 160,000 light-years in diameter, while most of the stars visible to the naked eye in the night sky are no more than 1,000 light-years from Earth.
In this 1,000-light-year range, only those stars that are larger and brighter can be seen by our naked eye. If the light emitted by the star is too weak, when it reaches the Earth, it will not be visible to the naked eye, and astronomical observation instruments will be needed. If viewed from distant Pluto, the Sun is only a bright spot.
The closest star in the universe to Earth is Proxima Centauri, a three-star system of three stars, but because they are all low in brightness, even if they are close to Earth, they are not visible to the naked eye.
The Big Dipper seven stars are composed of the seven stars of Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, Tianquan, Yuheng, Kaiyang and Yaoguang, which are relatively far away from the earth, but their size and brightness are larger than the sun, and they are all large fireballs that are burning like the sun.
Tianshu, Tianxuan, Tianji, and Tianquan are composed of dou bodies, which were called Kui in ancient times; Yuheng, Kaiyang, and Yaoguang were composed of bucket handles, which were called 杓 in ancient times. Because it resembles the bucket of ancient wine scooping and is located in the northern sky, it is called the Big Dipper by the ancients.
According to the archaeological discoveries of the ancient country of Heluo, more than 5,000 years ago, there were two stars in the spoon handle position of the Big Dipper, namely the left auxiliary and the right bow, so there was a big dipper nine stars at that time. Only later, the light of these two stars gradually dimmed, so only the Big Dipper was left.
Let's take a brief look at these seven stars.
Yaoguang, also known as the Broken Army or Ursa Major η, is located 104 light-years from Earth. The star was not long after its birth, relatively young, its age is only 10 million years, but the surface temperature is as high as 15,000 °C.
Kaiyang, also known as Wuqu or Ursa Major ζ, is located 83 light-years from Earth and belongs to the six-star system. Although it appears to the naked eye as a star, it is actually a system of 6 stars.
Also known as lianzhen or ursa majority ε, Yuheng is 83 light-years away from Earth, with an apparent magnitude of 1.77, and it is the brightest of the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
Tianquan, also known as Wenqu or ursa major δ, is 81 light-years away from Earth. It is a three-star system with two companion stars: Δ Ursa Major B and δ Ursa Major C. With an apparent magnitude of 3.4, Uranus is the darkest of the Big Dipper.
Also known as Lu Cun or Ursa Major γ, it is located 84 light-years from Earth and has a companion star, γ Star B. Ursa Major.
Also known as the Giant Gate or Ursa Major β, it is located 80 light-years from Earth.
Also known as the Wolf or Ursa Major α, 123 light-years from Earth, the Celestial Hub is already in the old age stage and is a red giant star. Billions of years later, the sun will also evolve into a red giant. Although it is the farthest Big Dipper from us, it is the second brightest star among the seven stars of the Big Dipper. It has a companion star, Ursa Major α Star B.
These 7 stars are not actually directly related, but because they are similar in brightness, they are artificially connected in order to form a bucket shape.
In ancient China, most of the brighter stars in the sky were connected and regarded as a certain shape, named after it, called star officer, and the Big Dipper belonged to the star official. In addition, the star region along the ecliptic was divided into 28 regions by the ancients, known as the Twenty-Eight Stars. These twenty-eight stars are divided into four elephants according to the southeast, southwest, and northwest, and the three walls form seven star areas.
In the West, these constellations are divided into constellations. The Big Dipper is grouped into the constellation Ursa Major, which is one of the brightest stars in the constellation Ursa Major.
The entire starry sky is now divided into 88 constellations by the International Astronomical Union, most of which are named after ancient Greek mythology. The zodiac signs that everyone often hears are mainly the zodiac, such as: Virgo, Aries and so on.
Whether it is ancient China or the West, the study of the sky is very in-depth, in addition to astronomical research, more importantly, for the purpose of stargazing, predicting good luck and bad luck.
At the 5-fold extension line between Tianxuan and Tianshu is the North Star, which is about 400 light-years away from Earth. The North Star is also called Gou Chen Yi, and it also has two companion stars that are invisible to the naked eye. Because the North Star is located at the Northern Celestial Pole, the entire northern hemisphere sky appears to revolve around the North Star. The Big Dipper and the North Star are actually not related, and in history, the North Star is not fixed, but several stars take turns to sit.
These stars in the sky are not stationary, they are all moving at high speeds. In a few tens of thousands of years, due to the relative position of these stars in the starry sky will change, the shape of the Big Dipper will change significantly. Not only will the shape of the Big Dipper change, but the shape of many constellations will also change over time.
In the case of our sun, it is also a star that is orbiting the center of the Milky Way at a speed of more than 200 kilometers per second, and it takes about 200 million years to orbit. The Earth is also moving at a high speed around the Sun at a speed of 30 kilometers per second. It's just that because they're so far away from Earth that their relative position in the sky for a short time appears to be essentially unchanged. In fact, if you could go back hundreds of millions of years, the way the stars looked then would be very different from what they are now.
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