Astronomy

How many constellations of the 88 known have special significance because they overlap the path that the Sun makes in the sky

13

How many official constellations are there?

88 "official" constellations

What are each of the constellations of the zodiac assigned with?

A number and three letter abbreviation

What did the International Astronomical Union base their names and boundaries on ?

Ancient Greek Tradition

What do most zodiac constellations resemble

Animals

What are constellations based on?

Arbitrary groupings of stars that only seem to be close together

Brightest stars in the the constellations

Arcturus, Sirius, Polaris, and Vega

What other groups decided constellations of their own?

Chinese, Egyptians, and Native Americans

What are the 12 or 13 constellations that the sun passes through called ?

Constellations of the Zodiac

When did astronomers begin to give the brightest stars Greek Letter Designations

Early 1600s

What does ecliptic also for ?

Earth's shared orbit with the constellations and the other planet around the sun

What is the curved line through the middle of the constellation

Ecliptic

Where does the word zodiac come from

Greek word for animal

What are the constellations based on ?

Greeks

Who made the list official names and boundaries and when was it officialized

International Astronomical Union in 1930

How does the letter designations go ?

Latin genitive form of the constellations name preceded by a lower case Greek Letter starting with alpha for the brightest and so on down the alphabet

The word constellation means

Studded with stars

What is another "official" constellation called based only on modern day inventions ?

Telescopium which is based on the telescope

What is the imaginary intersection of the Earth's equatorial plane with celestial sphere

The celestial equator

What is the path that the constellations pass through with the sun

The ecliptic

What is the main importance, other then its role in ancient astrology, that the zodiac plays in today

The planets are all found based on its constellations

Why do modern day astronomers retain the ancient constellations ?

They are a way to group stars in a more familiar way

Are constellations usually very different distances or the same distances from us in space

Very different from us in Space