Ursa Major Trivia
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50 free Ursa Major trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Ursa Major is the third-largest constellation and home to the most recognisable star pattern in the northern sky, and this quiz covers all of it: the seven stars of the Big Dipper and their Arabic names, the pointers that lead to Polaris, the eyesight test of Mizar and Alcor, the galaxies M81, M82 and the Pinwheel, the Hubble Deep Field, and the bear myths told from ancient Greece to the Iroquois and Korea. Easy questions ask what the Dipper is called in Britain and which star is at the end of the handle; harder ones dig into the star that moves against the rest of the group, the six-star system hiding in the handle, the 13-year-old who put the constellation on Alaska's flag and the Finnish word that means a salmon weir. It suits stargazers, science teachers, mythology fans and pub quizzes that want an astronomy round anyone can picture. BrainPickle's constellations quiz covers the rest of the sky. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on Ursa Major, its stars and deep-sky objects and the myths attached to it, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which region of the world is named from the Greek word for bear, after the starry bears that circle above it?
The Arctic
The Arctic comes from the Greek arktikos, literally 'of the Bear', after the bear constellations of the northern sky; Antarctic simply means 'opposite the Arctic'.
Q 02Ursa Major is the third-largest constellation; which long, winding one is the largest of all?
Hydra
Hydra, the water snake, winds more than a quarter of the way around the sky, and it became the largest only after astronomers broke the even bigger ship Argo Navis into three.
Q 03What do stargazers in Britain and Ireland traditionally call the seven stars Americans know as the Big Dipper?
The Plough
The Plough is the older name by centuries: 'dipper', an American word for a long-handled ladle, was attached to these stars only in the 1800s.
Q 04Which two Big Dipper stars are the "pointers" to Polaris?
Dubhe and Merak
Dubhe and Merak mark the outer edge of the bowl, and because the whole Dipper wheels around the pole, the line through them finds the North Star at any hour and in any season.
Q 05Which star lies at the very end of the Big Dipper's handle?
Alkaid
Alkaid was the 'army-breaking star' to Chinese and Japanese astrologers, who likened the handle to a sword and read a battle's luck from the direction its tip pointed.
Q 06Despite carrying the letter epsilon, which star is the brightest in Ursa Major?
Alioth
Alioth outshines the star labelled alpha because Johann Bayer, lettering the Dipper in 1603, simply worked along the pattern from bowl to handle and ignored brightness.
Q 07On traditional star charts, the Big Dipper's handle forms which part of the Great Bear?
Its tail
Its tail, though real bears have only stubs; an old tale jokes that it stretched when Zeus swung the bear up into the sky.
Q 08Which faint star beside Mizar in the Dipper's handle served as a traditional test of eyesight?
Alcor
Alcor kept a secret until 2009, when two teams found it has a faint companion of its own, turning the famous 'double' it forms with Mizar into six stars in all.
Q 09What are Mizar and its faint companion nicknamed?
Horse and Rider
Horse and Rider: the Dipper's three handle stars were pictured as a team of horses, so Mizar became the middle horse and its little companion 'Jack on the Middle Horse'.
Q 10Which astronomer, urged by a friend in 1617, recorded that Mizar splits into two stars through a telescope?
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei made the first detailed record of a telescopic double star, yet for centuries the credit went to Riccioli, who mentioned Mizar's split only around 1650.
Q 11Five Big Dipper stars drift through space together; which two are heading a different way?
Dubhe and Alkaid
Dubhe and Alkaid are not part of the family of five, and in about 50,000 years their drift will have bent the Dipper into a different shape.
Q 12Following the curve of the Big Dipper's handle away from the bowl leads to which bright orange star?
Arcturus
Arcturus: stargazers 'arc to Arcturus', and in 1933 its light, believed to have left the star around Chicago's 1893 fair, was used to switch on the city's next World's Fair.
Q 13In Greek myth, which nymph pursued by Zeus was turned into a bear and set in the sky as Ursa Major?
Callisto
Q 21How did the Iroquois interpret the handle stars of the Dipper?
Hunters pursuing the bear
Hunters pursuing the bear: the middle one carries a pot to cook it in, the faint star beside Mizar, and a related tale says the wounded bear's blood turns the autumn leaves red.
Q 22What did Norse pagans call the Big Dipper?
Woden's wagon
Woden's wagon rolled on in later names: Germans still call the pattern the Great Wagon, and the old English Charles's Wain, meaning wagon, may be an echo of Odin's.
Q 23Which folk song, long linked to the Underground Railroad, is thought to point escapers north by the Big Dipper?
Follow the Drinkin' Gourd
Callisto's place among the stars so enraged Zeus's wife Hera that she had the sea gods forbid the bear ever to bathe in the ocean, the myth's reason the Great Bear never sets.
Q 14In one ancient telling, Arcas, son of the nymph who became the Great Bear, joined her in the sky as which constellation?
Boötes
Boötes was the 'bear-keeper' to the Greeks, a herdsman forever driving the bear around the pole, and its brightest star's name means bear guard; other tellings make Arcas the Little Bear.
Q 15In some tellings, what disguise did Zeus adopt to approach the nymph who became the Great Bear?
He took the form of Artemis
He took the form of Artemis because the nymph had sworn off men to hunt with the goddess; when her pregnancy showed, Artemis banished her from the band.
Q 16In Homer's epic, which hero sails by the Great Bear, keeping it on his left?
Odysseus
Odysseus kept the Bear on his left to hold a course east for Ithaca; Homer adds that it alone never bathes in the ocean, which made it a fixed mark for sailors.
Q 17Which astronomer of the 2nd century AD listed Ursa Major among his original 48 constellations?
Ptolemy
Ptolemy's 48, set down in his Almagest, shaped Western star maps ever after: 47 are still official constellations, and only the giant ship Argo was later broken up.
Q 18In Hindu tradition, the seven stars of the Big Dipper represent which revered group?
The Saptarishi, or Seven Sages
The Saptarishi, or Seven Sages: Mizar is the sage Vasishtha and the faint star beside it his wife Arundhati, a pair held up at Hindu weddings as the model of a devoted couple.
Q 19Which Chinese space programme is named after the Chinese word for the Big Dipper?
BeiDou
BeiDou means 'Northern Dipper'; Chinese stargazers needed the 'northern' because they also saw a Southern Dipper, in the stars the West calls Sagittarius.
Q 20In pre-Islamic Arab tradition, the Big Dipper was seen as what?
A funeral bier followed by mourners
A funeral bier followed by mourners: in one Arab folk tale they are the dead man's children, circling the Pole Star night after night because it was his killer.
Follow the Drinkin' Gourd: a hollowed gourd was the everyday water dipper, though the song first reached print only in 1928, so whether it ever guided anyone is unproven.
Q 24In the traditional Sámi sky, stars of the Big Dipper form what?
The bow of the hunter Fávdna
The bow of the hunter Fávdna: he is a bright star nearby, forever stalking Sarvva, a giant reindeer or elk sprawled across Cassiopeia, Perseus and Auriga.
Q 25Which animated Disney series has a hero nicknamed Dipper for a Big Dipper-shaped birthmark on his forehead?
Gravity Falls
Gravity Falls: Dipper Pines hides the birthmark under his fringe, and the show keeps the secret until the episode 'Double Dipper' reveals where his nickname comes from.
Q 26'Septentrional', an old word for northern, comes from the Latin name for the Dipper's stars, the seven what?
Oxen
Oxen: the Romans saw the seven stars as a team plodding round the pole, like oxen circling a threshing floor in one old reading, and septentriones became their word for the north.
Q 27The flag of which US state shows the Big Dipper and Polaris in gold on blue?
Alaska
Alaska's flag was drawn in 1927 by Benny Benson, a schoolboy living in a children's home, who years later spent his $1,000 prize on training as a diesel mechanic.
Q 28A line drawn southward along either side of the Big Dipper's bowl leads stargazers to which zodiac constellation?
Leo
Leo: one line runs to Regulus, the lion's brightest star, and because Leo sits directly south of the bear, the two constellations climb highest together on spring evenings.
Q 29Which region of Spain flies a crimson flag whose seven white stars are said to stand for the Great Bear?
Madrid
Madrid: the stars echo the bear on the capital's coat of arms, and the same bear, strawberry tree and seven stars appear on the badge of Atlético Madrid.
Q 30Which galaxy pair sits above the Great Bear's head?
Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy
Bode's Galaxy and the Cigar Galaxy: Johann Bode found both on the last night of 1774, and a close brush with its bigger neighbour has set the Cigar ablaze with newborn stars.