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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The clue is in the name. “Planet” means “wanderer”. Because that’s what planets do – they wander.
People used to be able to see the night sky much better than most of us can nowadays (courtesy of light polution). And some of them paid close attention, and got to know the sky well, not least because it’s massively useful knowledge – you can navigate by the stars. And if you watch the sky over days, weeks, months, years, you notice that some of the lights move about. Those are the planets. The actual (so-called “fixed”) stars don’t (or at least, not on any timescale that indivduals are able to experience).
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