How come the north star is always to the north if earth is rotating around the sun?

Answer 1

Polaris is approximately 430 light years away. The earth as moves around the sun moves about 17 light minutes. So Polaris appears to move a little during the year but the amount is so small that it's not very noticeable.

Additional: Or to put it another way, it's like trying to tell if something 200 miles away moved about an inch.

Answer 2

While the Earth rotates around the sun, the geographic north pole is more or less always pointing "upward". The Earth does wobble as it spins, similar to a top or draddle as it starts to become unstable but this has a minimal effect on the location of the north star (Polaris at the moment) as seen from Earth, because it's so far away.

If you look out at a distant object and move your head around you will see that the distant object appears to move less than the objects closer to you.

Basically, the farther away an object is, the more stationary it appears. The stars are actually moving very rapidly with respect to the Earth and the constellations will look a little different to people on Earth a few thousand years in the future.

Answer 3

The Earth revolves around the Sun and it rotates on its axis at the same time. It rotates once per day (24 hrs) and revolves over a period or 365 days (1 year.) Even as it revolves, however, its axis of rotation always points in the same direction; towards the North Star.

The Earth's rotation is what makes distant objects in the sky, namely the Sun, Moon, planets and stars, seem to move. Each object seems to trace out an arc through the sky, stretching from the eastern to the western horizon. As you move from the sky directly above the equator toward either of the poles, the arcs get smaller and smaller. Eventually they get small enough that they never actually dip below the horizon They just turn in circles all the time. these are called circumpolar stars.

The North Star, called Polaris, has the unique position of sitting neatly in the path of the axis about which the Earth turns. The little circle it traces out in the sky is so small that you cannot really tell it is moving at all with the naked eye.

Answer 4

It's so far away that the parallax caused by the Earth's orbit is insignificant.

The Earth does wobble a bit around it's axis though, so the North star is not actually always to the North. However the period of this wobble is very long and the North star has been due North for thousands of years.

Answer 5

The North Star (Polaris) is 466 light years away. At that great a distance (1 light year equals about 6,000,000 miles) Earth's movement around the sun doesn't cause any noticeable shift in position of the North Star.

Answer 6

If you were standing at the north pole, Polaris would be directly over your head (approximately 90 degrees). All the other stars (if you have the time to stand and watch for a few hours) would spin around Polaris. No matter where you are in the northern hemisphere, you will see the same phenomenon with Polaris at a different angle. Here in Texas, I would guess the angle is about 50-60 degrees.

Answer 7

The Earth is about 150 million km. from the Sun. Polaris is millions of times further away than this. You can just measure the parallax (change in direction as the Earth orbits the Sun) with the most sensitive instruments available. It's less than a second of arc. That's like a cockroach in New York viewed from London.

Answer 8

It seems so, as the Earth itself rotates on it own axis whiles it continues to revolve around the sun this makes it to be always seen at the north and during this processes there is no wabbling of the earth for it to be seen as changing.

Answer 9

because the north star is located nearly 90 degrees with respect to the eliptical... in short if you were to transfer earth's directional coordinates over to the sun... the north star would be the north star still if one were on the sun.... it is so far away that the distance we travel around the sun has very little effect on its relative position and distance from us... its like if you were standing next to a car, facing north in LA... Seattle would be north of you... if you go to the other side of the car Seattle would still be north of you. because the distance is so great relative to the distance you moved.

Answer 10

Perhaps the north star is rotating too.