Identify the Constellation

The night sky has been a map, a calendar, and a storybook for people across every culture for thousands of years. If you enjoy spotting patterns in the world around you, you might also like testing your eyes with Name the Animal from Its Silhouette - it uses the same skill of reading shapes at a glance. This quiz puts that skill to work on the stars.

• Recognizing classic constellations by their star patterns, like Orion's three-star belt
• Spotting the Big Dipper and understanding it as part of the larger constellation Ursa Major
• Identifying the Pleiades, a tight cluster of blue stars visible to the naked eye - a good warm-up before trying Volcanoes Slideshow if you like earth and sky science
• Reading the W-shape of Cassiopeia, one of the easiest constellations to find in the northern sky

Constellations are more than pretty pictures - ancient sailors used them to navigate oceans, and farmers used them to track planting seasons. Learning to read the sky connects you to thousands of years of human history, and if you enjoy that kind of visual challenge, What Sound Does That Animal Make? tests a completely different sense in a similar "can you identify this?" format.

More Quizzes to Try

If this quiz got you in the mood for more science and pattern challenges, check out the Periodic Table Slideshow to see how well you know the elements, or take on the Volcanoes Slideshow for a tour of some of Earth's most powerful natural features.