Technology Tuesday: Starry, Starry Night (How Far are the Constellations?)

The poet Walt Whitman said, “I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are.” But where are they, exactly? Constellations cover the sky. They also look flat - the stars all appear to be at the same distance. Appearances can be deceiving.

We often refer to stars that look bright as “big,” and to their fainter companions as “small” stars. Are the bright ones really big? Are the faint ones actually small? Maybe the bright ones are closer and the fainter ones are farther away. Could it possibly be any other way? This is astronomy so the answer is “yes!”

The distance to any celestial object is one of the most important things we can know about it. Without that single critical piece of data, everything else is almost meaningless. To understand the structure and organization of things celestial, we must know distances. The Hipparcos satellite has provided us with accurate and precise stellar distances, revolutionizing our picture of the universe.

With Starry Night software it’s easy to find distances to individual stars. In doing so, we discover that some nearby stars are dim, and some bright stars are nearby. We also find that some of the brightest stars are very distant. When a distant star is also a bright star, it means the star is highly energetic; shining with hundreds or thousands of times the output of our Sun!

How Far are the Constellations?

Technology Tuesday is the effort to highlight and point us to the glory of God by pondering His great works. As the Psalmist explains, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork" (Psalm 19:1). "Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!" (Psalm 33:8). Oh, how great is our God!!