Ancient civilizations saw patterns in the sky that looked like ordinary people, animals, or objects. Some constellations represent myths, such as Orion the Hunter (hero of Greek mythology). Today, astronomers use constellations to name a set of stars. In fact, the International Astronomical Union (the authority in charge of assigning the names to celestial objects) officially recognizes 88 constellations.
Generally, the brightest star in a constellation is called ‘alpha’ (the first letter of the Greek alphabet) as part of its scientific name. The second brightest star in a constellation is known as beta, while the third brightest is ‘gamma’. So on until all the Greek letters are used. After this, the scientists continue with numerical designations.
Star catalog
Many stars had names since ancient times. Betelgeuse, for example, means ‘the giant’s hand’ in Arabic. It is the brightest star in Orion and its scientific name is Alpha Orionis. In addition, astronomers have created star catalogs over the years using unique numbering systems.
The Henry Draper Catalog, named after a pioneer in astrophotography, classifies more than 272,000 stars. This catalog has been widely used by the astronomical community for half a century. On the other hand, since there are so many stars in the universe, the International Astronomical Union uses a different system for newly discovered stars. Most consist of an abbreviation that represents the type of star. They also use a catalog that lists information about the star, followed by a group of symbols.
Also, in recent years the IAU has formalized names of stars by including people in its naming process. In 2015, they ran a contest and took into account the suggestions of science and astronomy clubs around the world. Subsequently, in 2016 they approved 227 names of stars, mostly taking into account the names they had had in ancient times.
