The constellations change slowly, over thousands of years, due to the proper motion of the stars with respect to the Sun. The main cause of these motions is the orbit of the stars around the centre of our Galaxy (with or without dark matter).
The quick answer (which you already might have found on your Internet mobile device) is yes, they do change over time.
Are constellations connected?
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.
I found the answer is They are not connected to each other at all. Some stars in a constellation might be close while others are very far away. But, if you were to draw lines in the sky between the stars like a dot-to-dot puzzle – and use lots of imagination – the picture would look like an object, animal, or person.
Why do we use constellations?
Constellations can be a useful way to help identify positions of stars in the sky. Constellations have imaginary boundaries formed by “connecting the dots” and all the stars within those boundaries are labeled with the name of that constellation.
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. Astronomers today still use constellations to name stars and meteor showers.
A common query we ran across in our research was “Are constellations real or just patterns?”.
However, keep in mind that constellations are not real objects; they are just patterns as seen from our observation point on Earth. The patterns we see are for the most part just by chance. 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.
You may be asking “Do astronomers still use constellation names?”
This is what our research found. 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. Some stars in a constellation might be close while others are very far away.
What causes the night sky to change?
If you look at the night sky different times of the year you see different constellations. This change is due to the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun.
Another frequently asked question is “Why do stars appear differently each night?”.
The stars appear each night to move slightly west of where they were the night before. Your location on Earth also determines what stars and constellations you see, and how high they appear to rise in the sky.