Re: Who named Orion's Belt The Little and Big Dipper? Thanks

Tom,

After looking through countless references I can only give you a vague answer to your question. Orion was named by the ancient Greeks; according to their mythology he was a giant hunter and one of the few male friends of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. Depending on what version of the story you hear, Orion gets killed by a giant scorpion (Scorpius). Artemis mourns his death and places him in the sky to commemorate him.

The origins of the names "Big Dipper" and "Little Dipper" are even more difficult to come by. The Big Dipper seems to just be the common name for the asterism because that's what it looks like. The Big Dipper has been called everything from "the Plow", to "the Weasel" to "the Drinking Gourd" and of course is also part of the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear) again from Greek Mythology.

I can only guess that Ursa Minor, (the Little Bear) was named the Little Dipper because it too kind of looks like one, but also because the two patterns of stars are associated with each other from Greek Mythology. So when the Great Bear was called "the Big Dipper" it just made sense to call the Little Bear the "Little Dipper". But really Tom, your guess is as good as mine.

Check out http://www.csulb.edu/~gordon/constel.html for a list of origin stories for other constellations and asterisms.

-Paul Barrett