Buzz
Luis Medrano:
6700 mph may seem like a lot, but in the vastness of the cosmos, it's insignificant. The constellations are incredibly distant.
If you hop into a car at night and drive straight, while observing the moon, you'll notice the angle of the moon from your perspective doesn’t shift. It feels like the moon is following you. On the other hand, nearby objects—like electric poles, buildings, or trees—whiz by quickly.
This phenomenon is called parallax. Objects that are closer to you seem to move more rapidly and cover more distance (though they don’t really) than those far away.
In the video above, several objects are shown in perspective. The light at the center, symbolizing the sun, is positioned so far that its movement is barely noticeable.
The sun is merely eight light-minutes away—about 146 million km on average. To us, that seems like a significant distance, but in cosmic terms, it's minuscule. Take Orion, for instance: its stars range from 243 to 1360 light-years away. If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take you 1360 years to reach these stars. And this is far from the most distant stars. Some stars are billions of light-years away from us.
With the right instruments, it's possible to detect parallax in distant stars, but it's not something you can see with the naked eye. Additionally, since the early days of astronomy and astrology, the movement of our solar system has shifted the positions of the constellations, causing them to no longer align with ancient astrology maps. The constellations now appear displaced.
As an extra bit of information: if your life revolves around astrology, whatever sign you think you are, you’re not.
This article was first published on Quora. Click here to read more.
