Stars fascinate us. They appear awesome and mysterious. Astrologers study their positions and predict their influence on human life. But like the astronomers we can learn the facts and study more about stars scientifically. We know, for instance, that stars are giant spheres of glowing gas. We cannot see stars in the bright sky or during the day when the sun shines brightly. Unlike our sun, they are not part of our solar system though they are called suns. The distance to the stars cannot be measured in miles or kilometers but in light years.

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Stars seem to twinkle, but actually they don’t. What happens is, as starlight enters the atmosphere, it is bent back and forth by the changing, constantly moving air currents around the earth. This movement makes stars twinkle. Astronauts have noted that stars do not twinkle when seen from outside Earth’s atmosphere.

Some dark, cloudless nights you may see a band of fuzzy white light spread across the center of the sky. This band is a galaxy called the Milky Way. A galaxy is a large group of stars. Some galaxies contain billions of stars. And the fact is, there are billions of galaxies but only three can be seen with the naked eye!

             In the Bible, Job, names some stars which are still known by the same names today.

             Many years ago, explorers used the stars to guide them along their way. Today pilots of airplanes or ships use instruments to direct their path, but still they check their instruments by the stars. Instruments may not always work right, but stars are dependable. The Polaris, or North Star, and the Southern Cross are especially used by travelers to find directions at night.

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People of long ago imagined they saw pictures when they looked at groups of stars. These star pictures are called constellations. Among those are Leo (lion), Aquarius (water carrier), Canis Major (which looks like a big dog) and Lyra (which forms like a musical instrument called lyre). Ursa Major (big bear) can be seen up in the months of June, July and August.

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Some Facts about Stars

• Sirius is the brightest appearing star. It is about 50 billion miles away.
• Another name for meteor is “shooting star.”
• The best-known comet is Halley’s. It appears about every 76 years. Its recent appearance was in 1986.
• The word “planet” means “wanderer”. The ancient Greeks thought the planets were stars that didn’t stay in their places. Planets are not stars. They reflect light from the sun. Stars have light of their own.
• There are as many as 100 sextillion stars in the known universe.