Southern Cross is a famous constellation (group of stars) in the Southern Hemisphere. It is also called the Crux, which is Latin for cross. The constellation gets its name from the outline of a cross formed by its four brightest stars. Magnitude is a measure of the brightness of a star. The brightest stars are of the first magnitude. The star farthest to the south is of the first magnitude. The eastern and northern stars are of the second magnitude, and the western star is of the third magnitude. See Magnitude .
The four stars of the Southern Cross are not arranged in the exact form of a cross, and the constellation is sometimes difficult to pick out if one has not seen it before. The upper and lower stars of the constellation, which form the “upright” of the cross, point to the South Pole of the sky. The Southern Cross appears too far south to be seen in the United States, except for a few places. It was visible in ancient Babylonia and Greece, where people considered it a part of the constellation Centaurus. The cross has gradually shifted southward in the sky as a result of the earth’s precession (circular motion of the earth’s axis).
