Well – the sun is in the Orion arm (so scientists think). The next arm “out” is the Perseus arm and the one inside is the Carina-Sagittarius arm. But this doesn’t mean we are “in” the constellation Orion – the Orion arm is simply a name given to the arm we are in as it’s the same arm several of the stars Orion contains is in.
What Constellation would we be in if our Sun was there?
From our nearest neighbouring star (not counting the Sun) we would be in Cassiopeia. Constellations are relative to the observer. From the Alpha Centauri system (3 stars including Proxima Centauri a. k. a. Alpha Centauri C) our sun would appear as an extra star in the constellation of Cassiopeia.
The Short Answer: Constellations are groups of stars. The constellations you can see at night depend on your location on Earth and the time of year. Constellations were named after objects, animals, and people long ago.
Do we still use constellations today?
Astronomers today still use constellations to name stars and meteor showers. A constellation is a group of stars that looks like a particular shape in the sky and has been given a name. These stars are far away from Earth. They are not connected to each other at all.
A question we ran across in our research was “Why do constellations change their patterns?”.
One way to consider this is “The changes in these star patterns occur because the stars that comprise constellations are not physically related, ” explains E. C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. “They are all independent objects, at different distances from us and from each other and moving independently from each other.”.
One more inquiry we ran across in our research was “Will constellations change over time?”.
One way to think about this is the quick answer (which you already might have found on your Internet mobile device) is yes, they do change over time .
How close are stars in a constellation to each other?
The individual stars in a constellation may appear to be very close to each other, but in fact they can be separated by huge distances in space and have no real connection to each other at all. For example, look at the image below of the stars which make up the constellation Orion.
Just how much those constellations will change depends on how far their stars are from Earth. Stars drift around at velocities measured in tens of kilometers per second—” extremely fast compared to a pitched baseball, but only about 1/10,000 the speed of light,” says physicist Daniel V. Schroeder from Weber State University.
How do astronomers know when stars move?
Obviously, you don’t notice stars moving when you stare up at the sky. But astronomers and their satellites keep track of the motion over time, with some stars drifting side to side, or toward or away from Earth. “That motion is easier to detect for the closer stars, and harder for the more distant ones,” says Schroeder.