Star chart facts for kids

This chart shows the star Kappa Andromedae, which you can see without a telescope! In 2012, scientists found a huge, hot gas giant planet orbiting this star. It's about 50 times bigger than Jupiter and orbits far away, almost twice as far as Neptune is from our Sun. This planet glows because it's still hot from when it formed, and it's slowly cooling down.

This old star chart from a book called Uranometria shows the Orion constellation.

A star chart is like a map of the night sky. It's a special drawing or diagram that shows you where stars and other space objects are, just as you would see them from Earth. Star charts are very old! They are one of the first ways people ever wrote things down or carved pictures. Some people think a very old carving from prehistoric times might be the first star chart, but we're not totally sure.

Star Charts: Maps of the Night Sky

Star charts help us understand the night sky. They show us where to find constellations, bright stars, and even planets. People have used them for thousands of years for many different reasons.

A Look Back in Time: History of Star Charts

Long ago, people in places like Babylon and Ancient Egypt drew star charts on walls and in their writings. They needed to know about the stars for practical things, like telling time or knowing when to plant crops. They also used them for religious reasons. Even today, star charts are used for both astronomy (the scientific study of space) and astrology (the belief that stars affect our lives).

During a time called the renaissance (a period of new ideas and art), many books were printed with star charts and other drawings. This helped spread knowledge about the stars to more people.

How Scientific Star Charts Work

For scientists, star charts are made using real data from looking at the sky. This information is often kept in tables or special computer databases. One of the most famous old star tables was in a book called Almagest by Ptolemy, written around 150 AD. It listed 1,028 stars and was the last known star table from ancient times.

Images for kids

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  A celestial map by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit, 1670

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  Star chart of the south polar projection for Chinese astronomer Su Song's (1020–1101) celestial globe.

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  Hevelius – Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia 1690

See also

In Spanish: Carta estelar para niños