Ursa Minor is best known as the Little Dipper. The star at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper is called Polaris. This star is important to star gazers and navigators since it is very close to the North Celestial Pole, or in other words, the projection of the North Pole out into space. That means that it is the one star in the heavens that does not appear to revolve as the earth rotates. To observers in the Northern Hemisphere, all of the other stars appear to trace circles around Polaris.

Because Polaris always appears over the North Pole, you can always tell which direction is North if you can see Polaris. Once you know which way is North, you can determine all of the other directions.

In clasical mythology, Ursa Minor was Arcas, son of Callisto who became Ursa Major.

Callisto was a very beautiful maiden who fell in love with Zeus. Zeus's wife Hera became jealous of Callista and turned her into a bear. Arcas, the son of Callisto was hunting in the woods many years later and came upon the bear. When he was about to kill her, Zeus stepped in and threw the bear into the heavens to save her from Arcas's arrow. Arcas was also turned into a bear an placed in the heavens as Ursa Minor.