Sky Matters: A meteor shower will light up the night sky in the first week of May

The sky is full of stories. Constellations record mythical figures and events. Most take their names from the Greeks or Romans, although we know the Greeks based their system on Sumerian traditions from some 3,000 years earlier.

There is evidence from cave paintings at Lascaux in the south of France of recordings of star patterns that could be 17,000 years old. While mythical worlds may intrigue us, the stories behind the real universe and all those points of light in the night sky are much more fascinating and diverse, with facts being often stranger than fiction. Each point of light, however apparently trivial, has its own history, its own story to tell.

For example, look towards the east around 10pm and you will see three bright points of light. The brightest is Jupiter which you really cannot miss.