If you use star maps with your students, ask them what the sizes of the star dots might mean. The amount of inventive suggestions which you will receive might astound you. The bigger the dot, the closer the star. Different sized dots represent the different colors of the stars. Different sized dots stand for the temperature variations among the stars.
Stars are different sizes.
The bigger the dot, the larger the star. The constellations that we see from our part of the world are different and more interesting than the constellations visible from the southern hemisphere. The Greco-Roman tradition of naming constellations and creating mythologies did not extend into the southern hemisphere. After Magellan s circumnavigation of the world in 1521, many of the constellations were named in the eighteenth century by mariners and scientists who traveled south of the equator. Their minds were more fascinated by technology than the rich traditions spawned by Greece and Rome.