Why does the pole star appers stationary?

Answer 1

As the earth revolves in its orbit around the sun, it acts like a gigantic gyroscope. The tilt in the pole is always oriented (with some complex variations that can't be covered here) toward the pole star. The star is so far away that the width of earth's orbit doesn't have a great effect on the star's position in our sky. The pole star does appear to move a little. It is very close to the celestial position of the north pole, but it is not exactly on the point.

Answer 2

I assume you mean polaris, the north star. Right now the earth's vertical axis (an imaginary line going through the north and south poles) points roughly directly at the north star. Thus when the earth rotates, it rotates along this axis, and so polaris never appears to move. The colliary is that the earth's rotation is precessing, ie the north-south axis is wobbling, like the axis of a spinning top. In ten thousand years or so, the north-south axis will no longer be pointing at polaris.

Answer 3

The Earth appears stationary to us who are on it because we are rotating along with it. For Neil Armstrong while on the Moon the Earth did not appear stationary at all but for him the Moon was his frame of reference and thus appeared stationary.

Answer 4

The pole star also called "Dhruv tara", named so because it is in the direction of North Pole. All the stars appear to rotate about a point very close to the Pole star, which appears to be almost stationary.

Answer 5

Imagine a line that goes in at the south pole, through the earth, and out of the north pole. Then imagine the earth spinning about this line or axis, as a bead might spin on some string - this is how the earth rotates, one revolution a day. Imagine the line coming out of the north pole, and continue it right out in a straight line, it will be heading more or less towards the pole star. From our view point (in the northern hemisphere) the line will appear to head off towards this pole star, and the earths rotation will be apparent by the stars rotating around that point. It's just by chance really that there is a star there at north, they don't really have one in the south.

Answer 6

Because one end of the axis upon which the Earth turns is pointed very close to it.

So no matter what point of rotation the Earth is in at the moment, anybody on the

Earth's surface looks to the same direction in order to see Polaris.

Answer 7

The pole star appears stationary in the sky because it is aligned with the Earth's axis of rotation. This means that as the Earth rotates on its axis, the pole star stays in a fixed position relative to our perspective on Earth. This makes it a useful navigational aid, especially for determining direction.

Answer 8

because it doesn't want to