If I look into the sky and I see two yellow dots it’s all stars for me. Then I hear one of them is mars and I’m like „ok, still looks the same“. How did the people hundred of years ago discover what’s a close planet and what’s a far away star?
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If you go out every night, you will start to notice that the stars form fixed patterns. They don’t change positions relative to each other, they all move across the sky together.
Then one night you notice a new star. It’s a bit brighter then the rest too. Over the next few nights you notice something bizarre. The new star is moving relative to all the other stars! Suddenly, its much close to Orion than it is to Taurus. How can that be? Stars don’t move.
Rather poetically the name “planet” comes from the Greek word for “wander”. Plantes are, to the Greeks, literally stars that wander.
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