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, Illinois Ursa, Illinois Ursa is a village in Adams County, Illinois, United States. The population was 626 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Quincy, IL–MO Micropolitan Statistical Area. Ursa is located at (40.074653, -91.370776). According to the 2010 census, Ursa has a total area of , all land. The first settlers came to Ursa in 1823. As of the census of 2000, there were 595 people, 252 households, and 167 families residing in the village. The population density was 872.9 people per square mile (337.8/km²). There were 261 housing units at an average density of 382.9 per square