Ursa Major (Alkaid) hauls a pile of firewood to light a fire beneath the pot. The Wampanoag people (Algonquian) Native Americans referred to Ursa Major as "maske", meaning "bear" according to Thomas Morton in The New England Canaan. The Wasco-Wishram Native Americans interpreted the constellation as 5 wolves and 2 bears that were left in the sky by Coyote. In Hinduism, Ursa Major is known as Saptarshi, each of the stars representing one of the Saptarshis or Seven Sages viz. Bhrigu, Atri, Angirasa, Vasishta, Pulastya, Pulalaha and Kratu. The fact that the two front stars of the constellations point to the pole
Ursa Major I Dwarf Ursa Major I Dwarf Ursa Major I Dwarf (UMa I dSph) is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy orbiting the Milky Way galaxy. Its discovery was revealed by Beth Willman et al. in 2005. Being a small dwarf galaxy, it measures only a few thousand light-years in diameter. As of 2006, it is the third least luminous galaxy known (discounting possible dark galaxies such as VIRGOHI21 in the Virgo cluster of galaxies), after the Boötes Dwarf (absolute magnitude −5.7) and the more recently discovered Ursa Major II Dwarf (absolute magnitude −3.8). The absolute magnitude of the galaxy is estimated to be only