Do stars change position

Answer 1

The stars change position in the sky through the course of the night just like the sun changes position in the sky through the course of a day, they rise in the east and set in the west. If you were to start watching a star in the east at the beginning of the night and keep observing that same star for hours, you will see the star's position move across the sky and eventually drop below the western horizon. There some stars that don't rise and set through the night though. The stars near the celestial pole move in circles around the pole. There is one star in the sky that doesn't appear to move at all, because it is located in line with the Earth's axis of rotation, or in other words, on the celestial pole. This star is Polaris, or more commonly known as the North Star. The south celestial pole currently lacks a star so there is no southern hemisphere counterpart. In reality, Polaris isn't perfectly on the celestial pole so even it moves in a very small circle too small to be seen with the naked eye.

The real question is, do the stars change position with regards to each other? The answer to that is, essentially, no. We have photographic plates of stars which show very little positional change over the course of an entire year. Over thousands of years, however, star positions WOULD show noticeable variation in position. Polaris (currently our north star) will not always be where it appears to be now.

Answer 2

If you look at some star trail photographs, such as the one at http://static.photo.net/attachments/bboard/00K/00KmbR-36051784.JPG, you can see the path that stars appear to take in the night sky. Stars move from east to west.

Answer 3

They do, but very, very slowly.

Since all the stars that you can see are orbiting the galaxy in slightly different orbits, they move relative to one another. The motion that we see is called "proper motion".

The star with the largest proper motion still takes 180 years to move the width of the full moon

Answer 4

Yes, the positions of some nearby stars do change. There are regular changes called parallax caused by the Earth moving round the Sun, and there are additional changes called proper motion caused by genuine movement of the stars through space.

Among the bright stars the one with the most proper motion is also the closest, alpha Centauri, which moves 3.71 seconds of arc per year, so it moves a distance equal to the apparent diameter of the Moon in about 240 years.

Answer 5

Yes, stars change their position in the sky, but even the nearby ones move quite slowly. So, without careful measurements, it would take more than 100 years to notice a difference.

All the stars are orbiting the center of the Galaxy, individually.

Each star has its own orbit. So there is movement of the stars relative to Earth.

Answer 6

The star does not change it position. We see it changing, but it is actually the earth rotating, so we see that stars changing its position.