Ursa Minor The tradition of naming the northern constellations "bears" appears to be genuinely Greek, although Homer refers to just a single "bear". The original "bear" is thus Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor was admitted as second, or "Phoenician Bear" (Ursa Phoenicia, hence Φοινίκη, Phoenice) only later, according to Strabo (I.1.6, C3) due to a suggestion by Thales, who suggested it as a navigation aid to the Greeks, who had been navigating by Ursa Major. In classical antiquity, the celestial pole was somewhat closer to Beta Ursae Minoris than to Alpha Ursae Minoris, and the entire constellation was taken to indicate the
Ursa Major II Dwarf II consists mainly of old stars formed at least 10 billion years ago. The metallicity of these old stars is also very low at , which means that they contain 300 times less heavy elements than the Sun. The stars of Uma II were probably among the first stars to form in the Universe. Currently there is no star formation in Uma II. The measurements have so far failed to detect any neutral hydrogen in it—the upper limit is only 562 solar masses. Ursa Major II Dwarf Ursa Major II Dwarf (UMa II dSph) is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy situated