A New Mythology

Constellations A constellation is a name given to a group of stars and the area of the sky they occupy. You might know the names of some from the signs of the zodiac. Eg. Libra, Leo, Pisces, Aquarius, etc. The whole sky is divided into constellations.

From where do the names of the constellations come? In the past, most travel was done by sea. Sailors navigated at night using the stars. To help make the sky familiar to them, they created shapes in the stars to represent stories from their culture. Many constellations show mythical stories from ancient Greek or Arabic cultures.

Orion Orion is a hunter from Greek mythology. One myth tells that Orion dared to say that he would kill every animal on the planet. An angry goddess tried to dispatch Orion with a scorpion. This is given as the reason that the constellations of Scorpius and Orion are never in the sky at the same time

Scorpius This is Scorpius, the scorpion that killed Orion. The name is Latin for scorpion. However, Scorpius is not a scorpion to everyone. The Javanese people of Indonesia call this constellation Banyakangrem, meaning "the brooded swan" or Kalapa Doyong, meaning "leaning coconut tree." In Hawaii, it is known as the demigod Maui's Fishhook. In Chinese mythology, the constellation was part of the Azure Dragon.

Cygnus – the swan In Greek mythology, Cygnus has been identified with several different legendary swans. Zeus disguised himself as a swan to seduce Leda, Spartan king Tyndareus's wife, who gave birth to the twins of Gemini, Helen of Troy and Clyteemnestra; Orpheus was transformed into a swan after his murder, and was said to have been placed in the sky next to his lyre (Lyra); and the King Cycnus was transformed into a swan.

A New Mythology For this HLA, we want you to come up with a new constellation, based on the following star map (it’s colours have been inverted to allow you to draw on it). Once you’ve seen and drawn a shape, come up with a made-up story to explain why there might a teapot or a giant crocodile or a mobile phone in the stars… No more than 100 words.