Expert: Ed - 12/21/2006

Question
i was wondering if each planet had its own stars?

Answer
Bryan,

I think you have it backwards.  Planets revolve around certain stars, not vice versa.  The eight planets and three "dwarf planets" (including Pluto) in our solar system all revolve around the sun.  So, you could say that the sun is their star.  Mars's star is the sun, just like the Earth's star is the sun, just like Venus's and Jupiter's and Saturn's star is the sun, etc etc etc.

The constellations look the same in the sky, as seen from any of the planets IN OUR OWN solar system.

Just to be clear, I feel like I ought to ask if you are wondering if planets revolving around other stars, in other solar systems, have their own constellations.  Is that what you were thinking?  Well, yes, the stars would look different from planets in completely different solar systems.  This is because they are soooooooo far away, that the distance between the nearest stars starts to become a factor, in the perspective that an alien on one of these planets would have on the sky.  So, the patterns they would see in the stars would be very different from what we see.  They wouldn't have the Big Dipper, for example, or the Little Dipper, or Orion, or the same constellations that we have in the Zodiac (Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius, Scorpio, etc.)  Who knows what weird constellations thay would be able to see...

If you're really interested, there are companies that make planetarium software, which use trigonometry and physics to extrapolate how the stars would like from planets in other solar systems.  As far as I know, no one has started naming those constellations yet.  Maybe you could be the first!
http://www.starstrider.com/
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

Here are a few related links, discussions, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet
http://www.thescienceplace.info/astronomy.html

I hope this is helpful, and... Keep Looking Up!!!
--Ed