The Universe is everything we can touch, feel, sense, measure or detect. It includes living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time. ... The Universe contains billions of galaxies, each containing millions or even trillio...
The night sky is filled with stars. To find a way around these scattered points of light, it is useful to see the night sky in the same way that ancient astronomers saw it- as a giant sphere surrounding Earth, these astronomers also saw patterns of stars in the night sky, which they called constellations.
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The celestial sphere People find objects on Earth's surface using an imaginary grid. The grid has a line called the equator dividing the planet into two halves. Latitude lines run round Earth either side of the equator, while longitude lines run from pole to pole. In the same way, astronomers imagine lines on the celestial equator. Grid lines running from pole to pole are called lines of right ascension (RA), while lines running either side of the celestial equator are lines of declination. Each object in Earth's sky can be located using points where these lines lines meet. The celestial sphere helps astronomers tracks the movements of objects in the night sky as Earth spins.
Starhopping Astronomers and amateur sky watchers find their way around the night sky by starhopping. First they spot a star or star pattern that is easy to recognize. Then they trace and imaginary line to a nearby star and hop to it, repeating the process until the target star in in sight.
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