How do stars manage to create the same constellations multiple times?

Question

I don’t see a flair option for Astronomy…

But I just recently wondered how stars could line up perfectly to create an Orions belt or many other shapes. Not only that but how do constellations end up being formed more than once? Are we looking at the same stars?

In: Physics

Answer 1

So the stars for every culture is the same if the are on the same angle of the planet (0 at the equator and + or – 90 at the poles). These stars don’t line up to paint pictures though. More that there are a few bright ones and people imagine shapes around them. For example if I put three dots on a page (with size according to how bright the star is) as stars appear in the night sky you may see completely different patterns or none at all. Orion’s Belt specifically is just three stars in the sky. They look nothing like a belt but some guy long ago made up some wak ass story about a warrior fighting a bull.