Ursa Minor

Ursa Minor is a Northern Hemisphere constellation otherwise known as the Little Bear. It is one of the 48 Greek constellations originally described by the 2nd century astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (Wikipedia). Ursa Minor remains one of the 88 modern constellations defined by the International Astronomical Union (Wikipedia).

Ursa Minor (abbrev. = UMi; genitive = Ursae Minoris) covers 256 square degrees or 0.62% of the celestial sphere making it the 56th largest constellation. It contains 39 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 6.5, the brightest star being Polaris.

For more information see the entries for Ursa Minor at Wikipedia and U. Wisconsin. For a chart of Ursa Minor, see UMi (IAU).


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