At night, if there are no clouds, you can see the stars. They appear as bright spots of light in the night sky. We cannot see the stars during the day. This is because light from the Sun makes the sky too bright.
Moving stars
If you sit and watch the stars, you will see that they seem to move across the sky. The photograph above shows how the stars appear to move.
Star patterns
The brightest stars in the night sky seem to form patterns. These patterns are called constellations. Although the stars of a constellation look close together in the sky, they may be very far apart in space.
The pictures on the right show two constellations with shapes that are easy to remember. Many constellations were given their names by the ancient Greeks, over 2000 years ago.
Through the year
We see different constellations at different times of the year. For example, Orion is easy to see from November to February but it cannot be seen from May to July.
This happens because of the movement of the Earth. The Earth is in orbit around the Sun. It follows a path through space. This path is called its orbit.
It takes one year for the Earth to travel all the way round its orbit. The diagram shows the position of the Earth in January and in July.
To see the stars, you need to be in the dark side of the Earth. The diagram above shows why you will see different stars in January and July.
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