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 Minor H1504+65, the hottest white dwarf yet discovered, with a surface temperature of 200,000 K. In the Babylonian star catalogues, Ursa Minor was known as the "Wagon of Heaven" (, also associated with the goddess Damkina). It is listed in the MUL.APIN catalogue, compiled around 1000 BC among the "Stars of Enlil"—that is, the northern sky. According to Diogenes Laertius, citing Callimachus, Thales of Miletus "measured the stars of the Wagon by which the Phoenicians sail". Diogenes identifies these as the constellation of Ursa Minor, which for its reported use by the Phoenicians for navigation at sea were also named "Phoinikē".