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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It boils down to curiosity. For an example of this, google Galileo Jupiter Moons.
In the early 1600s he persistently pointed his telescope at specific “stars” and noticed some of them moving. He noticed a pattern wherein some of them seemed to disappear and reappear on the other side, eventually hypothesising they were orbiting the larger one. Keep in mind this was before “the larger one” was known as Jupiter or even a planet.
To come to such conclusions when all you have is your mind and (relatively) crude tools, curiosity and genius.
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