(The faint band of light you see across the sky is the Milky Way, our galaxy.)
Our solar system, the Sun and our nine planets, is tiny compared with a galaxy.
The whole galaxy is rotating in space.
It takes our Sun 220 million years to circle once around the Milky Way!
The sky map below shows how the heavens would look at night if you were standing near the North Pole. The North Star, Polaris, would be directly overhead.
This is what ancient people imagined they saw in the heavens.
Try to find some of these stars and constellations on the map above.
And as the night passes you may see these changes:
Click here to see an animation of the apparent movement of the star sphere.
Try to find the North Star in each of the pictures below:
Are you completely confused? Let's connect the dots.
Now we will show you the names of the constellations.
Activity:
Paste this picture into Paint. Set you image attributes to a width of about 16 inches and paste this picture to the right to guide you.
Now its your turn to label your star map.
May the heavens be with you!