What is the earth doing that is making it so the polaris will cease as the north star?

Answer 1

This is the effect of 'precession' of the earth's rotation. Picture a toy top or a toy gyroscope that you have started spinning on a table. At first it stands straight up as it spins. But after a few seconds, as it begins to slow down and the handle tips a little bit away from straight vertical, notice how the handle begins wobbling around in a circle. If there was a small flashlight at the end of the handle, the light would trace a circle on the ceiling. That's exactly what the earth's axis is doing ... the amount of tilt isn't changing, but the north pole is drawing a big circle on the ceiling, once every 26,000 years. Right now, it's pointing at Polaris on the ceiling, but as it wobbles in a big circle, it'll circulate around to other points in the sky. The day and year will be the same, the seasons won't change, and the constellations will still look a lot like the same patterns we see today; but the globe of the sky will rotate around a different point, no longer around Polaris.