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Asked by ramz555 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012.
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Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:
Well, we can see stars with the naked eye but obviously they tend to be pinpoints of light.
In fact, it’s really hard make out even the nearest stars as, as they take up way less than 1 arcsecond in the sky (an arcsecond is a 1/360th of a degree, with 360 degrees across the whole sky).
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Karen Masters answered on 14 Mar 2012:
I’m not quite sure what you mean, but one of the neatest things I have seen recently is a picture of the massive red giant star Betelgeuse (Orion’s armpit) which shows its disc, and even sunspots on its surface. Betelgeuse is so large that if it were where the Sun is it would extend past the orbit of Jupiter.
You can see the picture at the Astronomy Picture of the Day: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100106.html
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Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:
With out eyes, we can see two objects about 1 arcminute apart (astronomers measure sizes in angles because everything is so far away). The largest stars are about 600 times smaller so you need to zoom in at least that much. But the atmosphere gets in the way and stops us easily zooming in more than about 120 times, which is frustrating.
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Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:
A lot more than a planet, because they are so much further away.
You can spot whether a point of light in the sky is a star or a planet by looking at it through a pair of normal binoculars. If the point still just looks like a spot, and you can’t see a shape, then it’s a star. If you can see a disk, then its a planet! Keep an eye out for Venus, Jupiter, and Mars on clear nights this month 🙂
Comments
ramz555 commented on :
thank you