The history of constellation mapping and naming
The activity of mapping stars and constellations dates from antiquity. The Sumerian civilization was already recording the movement of stars in the night sky around 3000 BCE. The Greeks also made considerable contributions to the field. The idea of connecting stars into recognizable patterns, or constellations, is also ancient. However, the Greeks were the first who came up with the system of naming them, and their contributions still shape the modern understanding of the field.
The Greek astronomer Ptolemy, who lived in the 2nd century, made an important contribution to astronomy, in his work called Almagest. In it, he included the positions and names of a great number of stars and constellations. Ptolemy perpetuated the system of creating constellations: connecting the stars in recognizable shapes and assigning them names of mythological figures or objects, which was already in use in his day. His work was considered one of the most important contributions to astronomy for more than a thousand years, even though later discoveries significantly modified his Map of the Stars.
In the Middle Ages and during the Renaissance, the astronomy of the ancient Greeks was overshadowed by the contribution of Islamic astronomers. The stars' names, coined by the ancient Greeks, owed a significant debt to Arabic, as they were translated to the Arabic language throughout this period. As the Renaissance came about, the study of astronomy was thoroughly transformed, with constellations receiving new, arguably more scientific names. The main astronomers during this era established many of the familiar star names still in use today, and their findings laid the groundwork for scientific astronomy as it is practised today.
The twentieth century saw the steady increase of our knowledge concerning the cosmos. With advances like radio telescopes and satellites, familiar constellations gave way to newer discoveries, leading to the recognition of new constellations. The International Astronomical Union is responsible for the scientific standardization and naming of all new astronomical discoveries.
