Why do constellations change from season to season?

Answer 1

Yes, as the Earth revolves around the sun and the seasons change, the constellations that were previously in the direction of the sun are now in the opposite direction of the sun, so we can see them at night. In other words, we can never see any constellations that are in the same direction as the sun, but as the seasons change the sun's direction changes.

Answer 2

The constellations make a "complete circle" over the course of a year... that is, the stars that were visible at midnight on October 17 this year are the same ones that were visible on October 17 of last year, and so on. If you can roughly identify midnight and you're familiar with the constellations, you can make a pretty good guess as to the date just by looking up, and figuring out the season is much easier than that.

Answer 3

Go outside tonight. Around midnight, look around the southern sky and find some

pattern of stars that you'll recognize if you see them again. They're in the sky,

south of you, around midnight.

Now what happens if you go looking for them again in six months from now ? In

that time, the Earth has gone half-way around the sun, and now, when you look

in the same direction as those distant stars you saw at midnight ... the sun is in

that direction from you now. Those same stars are in the southern sky at Noon

now, not at midnight.

Answer 4

They _DO_ change. We just don't live long enough to notice.

Every star has its own "proper motion", in all different directions. The stars all orbit the center of the Milky Way galaxy, for example; for the Earth, this takes about 220 million years. But they are all so far away that we don't notice the changes, even over the course of a lifetime.

If we could be placed in "suspended animation" for 10,000 years, you'd notice that the constellations were subtly different - sleep for a million years, and they'd be so different that you wouldn't recognize them.

Answer 5

Stars are much farther away from the Earth than the planets. The closer an object is to you, the easier it is to follow its motion. For example, look out the window of a moving car; the closest scenery seems to be moving very quickly while the things furthest away don't seem to move at all.
The planets, like Earth, have an orbital motion around the Sun. So their positions relative to the stars will change. The planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars are closer to the Sun than the outer planets, so their position changes more rapidly.

Answer 6

our rotaion and revolution around the sun: The stars, which make up constellations, are much farther away from us than our sun. So if, due to our position in our orbit, the sun is between us and a constellation (Scorpio for example), then that constellation cannot be viewed because it is daytime when that one is in the sky. Then as the Earth moves to a different position in the orbit, the sun will be in a different constellation (actually that constellation is behind the sun), so eventually Scorpio will be visible because it is night time when it is in the sky.
They appear to change position because the Earth moves on its axis and the Earth is held down by gravity but the stars and the sky are not held down by gravity so the constellations appear to chane positions
Because Earth rotates
They appear to move - is that what you mean? They move two different ways: one - as Earth rotates on it's axis, they appear to rise and set, just like the sun & moon. And two - as Earth moves around the sun, every night the constellations move a little further West in contrast to where they were the night before. That's why at midinght in the Fall, Orion is in the East. At midnight in the Winter, Orion is now overhead, and in the Spring at midnight, Orion is in the West.
At night time, as Earth orbits the sun, we look out in different directions in space and we see different patterns of stars, as they come into view. The changes become noticeable as the weeks, months and seasons go by...

Answer 7

The visibility of constellations changes over the year, although specific constellations are visible at the same time every year. Constellations also change shape over tens of thousands of years.

First, why do we see different constellations at different times of the year? Earth orbits the Sun once a year. Sunlight that hits Earth's atmosphere scatters around and makes the sky blue, preventing people on the ground from seeing the stars during the day. So people can only see constellations when they are situated on the side of Earth that faces away from the Sun. At different times of the year, Earth is on different sides of the Sun, so we see different parts of the sky and different constellations. Since our view of the sky changes by 360 degrees in 12 months, the view changes by 30 degrees in 1 month; 30 degrees is about three fists' width held at the end of your outstretched arm. So each month, stars that you saw last month have moved about 30 degrees.

Why do constellations change over long periods of time? Because stars move through space. We can measure how fast they are coming toward us or going away from us by studying their spectrum, using a phenomenon known as the Doppler effect. We can measure how fast they are moving from side to side only for the closest stars, which have noticeable "proper motions" with respect to other stars. If the proper motion is large enough, then the star will move noticeably if you wait long enough. Stars are so far away, however, that they have to move a long way for us to see any difference. The star with the largest proper motion is known as Barnard's star; it moves the diameter of the Moon in the sky every 180 years. Unfortunately, Barnard's star is too faint to see with the naked eye. No star visible to the naked eye moves noticeably in a human lifetime, so no constellation will change noticeably in a human lifetime.

Answer 8

Because of the motion of the Earth around the Sun, the apparent position of the Sun relative to the stars is changing.

And when the Sun is up, you can't see the stars. But they are still there. Orion is right overhead at noon in June in the Northern Hemisphere.

Answer 9

-- The Earth is turning.

-- You are standing on the Earth, so you are turning.

-- Your head is turning with the rest of you.

-- Since your head is turning, you have to keep turning your eyes back in the opposite

direction in order to watch a fixed point ... such as a distant star.

-- You don't feel the Earth or yourself turning, so your brain decides that the stars

must be drifting past you.

Answer 10

Actually they do. But the stars are so far away that it takes a long, long time to notice any movement. For example, Barnard's Star - one of the stars that is closest to us - has an apparent movement of 10.3 arc-seconds per year - that is, one degree in 350 years. The apparent motion of other stars is less than that.