The night sky 7,000,000 years ago above Earth?

Would the constellations layout in the night sky 7,000,000 years ago
be any different to how we see them today?

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 14:47:39 -0600, Christopher wrote
(in message ):

From: (Christopher)
Newsgroups: alt.astronomy

Would the constellations layout in the night sky 7,000,000 years ago be any
different to how we see them today?

Yes, stars move, they are not all of one piece. Some are pretty close o us,
others are quite far away. (Some of those stars we see may not have even
existed 7 million years ago.) Fairly faint stars close to us will seem very
bright compared to even fairly bright stars that are quite far from us. Sirus
won't been around as the brightest star in (I believe) less then 7 million
years, it may not even been visible to the naked eye, having moved out of our
local area. In the mean time it is busy moving along on its own orbit that
has little or nothing to do with the other stars that make up Canis Major.

--
Harry F. Leopold
aa #2076
AA/Vet #4
The Prints of Darkness

"The space time you are trying to reach has been disconnected..." Stony

Thanks for all the replies. Our species 7 million years ago was just
an ape with a lot of potential, but in clearings in the tree tops they
would have on clear nights been able to see the stars, so I was just
wondering if the...patters of the stars would be identical to how we
see them 7 million years on, apparently not, though the three stars in
the belt of Orion might have looked as we see them.

In message , Christopher
writes
Thanks for all the replies. Our species 7 million years ago was just
an ape with a lot of potential, but in clearings in the tree tops they
would have on clear nights been able to see the stars, so I was just
wondering if the...patters of the stars would be identical to how we
see them 7 million years on, apparently not, though the three stars in
the belt of Orion might have looked as we see them.


Very bad example. The stars in Orion are some of the youngest and
brightest we know, and probably weren't there 7,000,000 years ago. In
fact we know that even though the belt stars are all about 1000 light
years away, they are moving about a milli-arcsecond a year, so in
7,000,000 years they will have moved several degrees - if they are still
there. There are stars in widely separated parts of the sky which seem
to have come from Orion.
--
Rabbit arithmetic - 1 plus 1 equals 10
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:35:24 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
wrote:

In message , Christopher
writes
Thanks for all the replies. Our species 7 million years ago was just
an ape with a lot of potential, but in clearings in the tree tops they
would have on clear nights been able to see the stars, so I was just
wondering if the...patters of the stars would be identical to how we
see them 7 million years on, apparently not, though the three stars in
the belt of Orion might have looked as we see them.


Very bad example. The stars in Orion are some of the youngest and
brightest we know, and probably weren't there 7,000,000 years ago. In
fact we know that even though the belt stars are all about 1000 light
years away, they are moving about a milli-arcsecond a year, so in
7,000,000 years they will have moved several degrees - if they are still
there. There are stars in widely separated parts of the sky which seem
to have come from Orion.

Right, thanks for that. Are there ANY constellations that our ape
ancestors would have seen that we see?

Christopher wrote:

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:35:24 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
wrote:

In message , Christopher
writes
Thanks for all the replies. Our species 7 million years ago was just
an ape with a lot of potential, but in clearings in the tree tops they
would have on clear nights been able to see the stars, so I was just
wondering if the...patters of the stars would be identical to how we
see them 7 million years on, apparently not, though the three stars in
the belt of Orion might have looked as we see them.


Very bad example. The stars in Orion are some of the youngest and
brightest we know, and probably weren't there 7,000,000 years ago. In
fact we know that even though the belt stars are all about 1000 light
years away, they are moving about a milli-arcsecond a year, so in
7,000,000 years they will have moved several degrees - if they are still
there. There are stars in widely separated parts of the sky which seem
to have come from Orion.

Right, thanks for that. Are there ANY constellations that our ape
ancestors would have seen that we see?

I can't think of any whose brightest members are all distant enough
not to have appeared to 'go their separate ways' over such a long
period of time. Most of the brightest stars we see are comparatively
close, within a couple of hundred light-years, but in seven million
years the solar system travels *thousands* of light-years in its
orbit around the centre of the Galaxy. Someone mentioned the Big
Dipper: five of its stars are believed to be in the same loose
grouping as the Sun and moving in roughly the same direction, but the
other two are quite unrelated, with their own trajectories. OTOH most
of the naked-eye deep-space objects, including the Andromeda Galaxy,
the Magellanic Clouds, the globular clusters, and the older galactic
clusters, would have appeared much as they do today (but better,
without light pollution!), although the nearer ones would have been
seen in slightly different positions.

--
Odysseus

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 09:06:47 GMT, Odysseus
wrote:

Christopher wrote:

On Tue, 6 Jan 2004 19:35:24 +0000, Jonathan Silverlight
wrote:

In message , Christopher
writes
Thanks for all the replies. Our species 7 million years ago was just
an ape with a lot of potential, but in clearings in the tree tops they
would have on clear nights been able to see the stars, so I was just
wondering if the...patters of the stars would be identical to how we
see them 7 million years on, apparently not, though the three stars in
the belt of Orion might have looked as we see them.


Very bad example. The stars in Orion are some of the youngest and
brightest we know, and probably weren't there 7,000,000 years ago. In
fact we know that even though the belt stars are all about 1000 light
years away, they are moving about a milli-arcsecond a year, so in
7,000,000 years they will have moved several degrees - if they are still
there. There are stars in widely separated parts of the sky which seem
to have come from Orion.

Right, thanks for that. Are there ANY constellations that our ape
ancestors would have seen that we see?

I can't think of any whose brightest members are all distant enough
not to have appeared to 'go their separate ways' over such a long
period of time. Most of the brightest stars we see are comparatively
close, within a couple of hundred light-years, but in seven million
years the solar system travels *thousands* of light-years in its
orbit around the centre of the Galaxy. Someone mentioned the Big
Dipper: five of its stars are believed to be in the same loose
grouping as the Sun and moving in roughly the same direction, but the
other two are quite unrelated, with their own trajectories. OTOH most
of the naked-eye deep-space objects, including the Andromeda Galaxy,
the Magellanic Clouds, the globular clusters, and the older galactic
clusters, would have appeared much as they do today (but better,
without light pollution!), although the nearer ones would have been
seen in slightly different positions.

Thanks for that as well, it appears that only the good old Moon would
be familar, but even then, 7 million years back it would maybe have
yet to pick up a few craters on our side, and the Earth as well would
be due to be hit with a few big rocks.