Expert: Paul Wagner - 5/18/2011

Question
earth is orbiting the sun at 66700 miles an hour, our solar system is orbiting the milky way at 486000 miles an hour and the milky way is traveling at 1.34million miles an hour.

Heres the question, When man first logged the night sky's say 3000 years ago, how much closer would the stars and planets have been to us, and could it have been possible to see stars and planets with the naked eye then what we need to see use a telescope now.
thank you
Allan

Answer
Hi Allan

While all of those speeds seem fast, in truth the solar system has changed very little in relationship to itself over the past three thousand years.  So the stars and planets, with a few very minor exceptions, would not have changed at all.

But one thing has changed considerably--and that is the amount of man-made light in the nighttime sky.  The ancients would have seen the sky with no light pollution at all, and were able to see about 2500 stars quite easily.  Today in a modern city, we are lucky to see 250 stars---not because the stars have changed, but because we have filled the atmosphere with dust and light.

Paul Wagner