The Big Dipper's flock of stars

DESCENDANTS OF THE DIPPER by Ken Croswell.
Heart of the best-known star pattern, the Ursa Major moving group probes the
behavior of young stars and the chemical evolution of the Galaxy.

Seven stars form the Big Dipper, the first star pattern many skygazers
learn. From most northern latitudes, the Big Dipper appears every hour of
the night, as faithful as the North Star to which it points. After viewing
spectacular constellations such as Orion and Scorpius, seeing the more
modest stars of the Big Dipper and the constellation to which they belong,
Ursa Major, can feel like coming home.

Astronomy enthusiasts know there's more to the Big Dipper than just its
attractive shape. The five central stars--named Merak, Phecda, Megrez,
Alioth, and Mizar--are stellar siblings. They were born from the same gas
and still travel together through space.

But the entire Ursa Major moving group spans the sky from north to south. It
features dozens of stars--some bright, some dim, some white, some red, some
orange, some yellow--scattered across hundreds of light-years of space.

The full story--with a color-coded list of all 59 definite and probable
member stars in the sky--is at
http://KenCroswell.com/DescendantsOfTheDipper.html .

Correct email: MagnificentUniverse "at" Yahoo "dot" com.