From Alcor to Zappafrank: How the stars and other celestial objects got their names
CNN
Step out the door on a clear, dark night and you'll spot countless objects up there in the sky: planets, stars, comets, constellations, moons. And for every one of the ones we can see, an Earthling has named it. Here's how they did it.
You might even be able to pick out a small star there, in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper. It's called Alcor, a binary star paired with the nearby, brighter Mizar, Arabic for "cloak." In Arabic, the former star is called al-Khawwar, "the faint one," and finding it made for a good eye test in the days before wall charts. "He can see Alcor," an Arabic proverb has it, "but not the full moon," akin to not being able to see the forest for the trees.
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