I'm curious about the 6 main stars in the Big Dipper. Is it possible that some of them are actually farther apart from eachother than they are from the Earth? I mean from here they all appear to be in the same general region of space, but our depth perception may be playing tricks on us. Maybe one of them is actually midway between Earth and another star of the Big Dipper. Or is that crazy?
2006-10-26 16:27:38 · 6 answers · asked by Mister_Worm 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
It is theoretically possible that one star in a constellation could be closer to the Earth than it is to another star in the same constellation. It's not possible that one could be precisely "midway" between the earth and another star in the constellation, because then the two stars would appear to be "on top of each other" from our perspective, and they wouldn't form two separate stars of the constellation. But if you're meaning that one would be roughly between Earth and another star but off axis by a little, yes, that's possible.
However, this isn't the case in The Big Dipper. Here are the stars in the Big Dipper and their distances from Earth in Light Years.
Dubhe 124
Merak 79
Phecda 84
Megrez 81
Alioth 81
Mizar 78
Alkaid 101
If they were all in a straight line away from earth, the biggest possible gap between any two would be 46 light years between Dubhe & Mizar. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, they aren't in a line, but they cover a fairly small angle in the sky (about 25 degrees), and all of them are relatively far from the Earth compared to their distances from each other. Even if the two with the greatest difference in distance from Earth were at the opposite ends of the dipper (which they're not), they couldn't be further from each other than they are from us with only 25 degrees of apparent separation when viewed from Earth.
2006-10-26 17:17:09 · answer #1 · answered by Try Thinking For Yourselves 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Constellations aren't real. They are man made objects that were made thousands of years ago for navigational purposes. The truth is the stars that make up a constellation are nowhere near each other. They could actually be millions of light years apart. And in some cases, a star that is not part of the constellation may be closer to one of the stars in that constellation than the others.
2006-10-26 16:34:59 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Even if the Big Dipper can be see from Earth as a projection, I would try to estimate that the two extreme stars are about 50 lightyear far from each other.
2016-05-21 23:55:15 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, it's not crazy and it's correct in priniciple. There is no necessary distance relationship just because of our perspective, and many constellations would be completely unrecognizable outside the solar system.
2006-10-26 16:40:01 · answer #4 · answered by questor_2001 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Only I know haha
2016-01-12 02:51:56 · answer #5 · answered by Isaiah 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not crazy at all, but the thing for YOU to do is a little internet research. Let us know the answer.........!
2006-10-26 16:33:57 · answer #6 · answered by Steve 7 · 0⤊ 3⤋