eli5: If the sun revolves around the galaxy, why do we still see the same constellation that was discovered by the Romans (probably 1000s of years ago). surely they should have been scattered by now due to revolution of the sun combined with the revolution of the earth around with sun

Question

Thnx to all, for the answer. I had a good time discussing and clearing my doubt.

In: 179

Answer 1

I had watched some debate of two guys on ‘flat Earth’ and stars came up. So as you go through the year, stars do move in the sky. Let’s say that Orion is at the west during the winter for you. Well the west during winter points the opposite direction during summer. However, when you consider the North star – No matter at what point we are in the year, North is always pointing the same direction. That is to say that the North star is essentially overhead of our solar system. Not quite relevant, but maybe some are curious.

Edit: I should mention that this is assuming you are looking west at the same time (like 9 at night) obviously we spin every day so west technically points around us every day)

The constellations don’t move relative to each other because they are all in the same cosmic direction and they really haven’t moved far enough relative to the distance of where they are. A star billions of light years in one direction is still going to be billions of light years in the same direction after only 2000 years