Are all the stars we see part of the milky way? and are the big and little dipper connected?

Question

Are all the stars we see part of the milky way? and are the big and little dipper connected?

Answer 1

Yes.

No.

Answer 2

Yes, all the stars in the night sky are in our galaxy.  Stars in other galaxies (even the closest ones) are too far away for us to see the individual stars (except with the largest telescopes).

None of the stars in any constellation (with a very few exceptions) are actually related to each other in any way.

The constellations are just the patterns humans see in the random arrangement of stars in the sky.

Stars in a constellation can be hundreds to thousands of light years apart, and only appear related due to our angle of view.

The asterism of the Big Dipper (which is part of the constellation Ursa Major) and the asterism of the Little Dipper (which is part of the constellation Ursa Minor) are just the patterns humans see in the random arrangement of unrelated stars.

Answer 3

All of the stars visible in to the naked are are found within the milky-way galaxy. Most of the stars visible are less than 1000 light years away. And even then many stars like ours are not visible beyond 20 light years. The most distant body visible to the naked eye is the andromeda galaxy - some 2.5 million light years away.

Are the big dipper and little dipper connected? Not litterally. They are visible in the northern hemisphere but they are both completely seperate constellations. The only connection is that they both resemble giant soup ladles, just one is bigger than the other.