UNIT VIII 



GETTING ACQUAINTED WITH THE 

 STARS 



PREVIEW 



We have looked into the sky on a dark clear night and 

 have seen multitudes of twinkling stars, some large and 

 some small. If we look closely, we notice that some of the 

 stars are of a different color, some bright red, deep blue, 

 or white. Boys and girls who are scouts can pick out 

 the North Star and some of the easier constellations. 

 Doubtless boys and girls during the past ages have done 

 the same thing. They have wondered about the stars 

 and how far away they were. The ancients thought the 

 sky was an inverted bowl and that the stars were holes 

 through which light shone. Primitive man worshiped 

 light because he was so much dependent on it. Ancient 

 people studied the stars and used them as guides to help 

 find their way about at night. It is little wonder that the 

 ancients with so much leisure time should find the heavens 

 interesting. Shepherds who watched the flocks by day 

 also watched the stars by night. It is not strange that 

 these imaginative and superstitious people of the olden 

 times saw figures of people and animals in the stars, and 

 created stories about their origin in the sky. Nor is it 

 strange that they made a universe with the earth as a 

 center, and believed that the stars in the heavens revolved 

 around it. They knew that the sun and the moon and 

 the stars helped them to keep time, and they also came, 

 in time, to be more familiar with some stars than with 



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