Astronomy Wonder Assignment

Main questions:

I. How can we trust the information that constellations/stars give us? (Time, direction, etc)

II. Constellations/stars specialties/facts

-Why can we tell directions? 

A star in the sky, the North Star, which is located near Ursa Major, the “Big Dipper” (well not really, it’s quite a distance), never changes its position whatever the time on the world is. Looking at it will point us to the north, and so on for other directions. It is used to tell which way the north is and widely used by people now and then. 

-Why can we tell when it would be during the night? 

The North star combined with the “Little Bear” could also tell us about time, why does it work is because the “Little Bear” is ridiculously close to the North Star so that it revolves around the star without seemingly changing its formation of stars massively, as the North star almost, if not, directly above the North pole axis at ~0 degrees. (How to use: have the North Star make a straight line to the 2 pointer stars of Ursa Minor, and then mark where the straight line is pointing counterclockwise, starting from 00:00 a.m. at 0 degrees) 

-Why do they have specific names? 

Greeks have named them specific names after superstitious belief in god back in the past, and they don’t really know what they’re called, they thought there were to be some “story” and they’re supposed to be named after that. 

-Are the stars that are formed the picture(constellations) even close? 

The average star distance to earth is about 1000 light years, yep, this looks like it will take decades. Even if we somehow teleport to the star, we won’t see the earth.

[P.s., the closest star to earth (Proxima Centauri) is at least 4 lightyears away.]

-Do they just stay there? 

Because the Earth rotates itself, how we locate the stars can be affected by the time that we look at them (except the North Star, which just seemingly stays there up the North Pole as it’s circumpolar specialty). The stars itself can also move because they contain gravity, as they are traveling around the Galaxy, which the Earth and the Sun have in common so it makes the Earth rotate around the Sun. This is called proper motion. 

-Why do they shine?

From what we see from our naked eyes, they look like they’re really shining in the starry night, but that’s not the case. The Stars, which is formed of Plasma, are like miniature suns but doesn’t shine as bright from our distance that we see it as. Just like how the sun works, their lowest temperature (the surface) is only ~9980 Fahrenheit while the core reaches up to 27 million Fahrenheit, plus the speed of light travels at 299,752,498 Meters per second, so combined with how it functions and its distance, stars are also suns.

Sources used:

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/117-the-universe/stars-and-star-clusters/constellations/375-what-are-constellations-used-for-intermediate

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae492.cfm

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers/constellations/

https://www.universetoday.com/85730/do-stars-move/

https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/tell-time-by-stars.html

How to navigate using the Stars

Personal reflection: I think I’ve put too much effort into this project, but nonetheless it’s still a good personal quality to learn from since most of the questions are answered, and there is reasonable information behind to support the conclusion. I am satisfied with this project and the effort I’ve put into it.