How can you tell if a celesital body is a star or a planet?

Question

How can you tell if a celesital body is a star or a planet?

Answer 1

a atar is luminous that means it gives its own light and planets reflect the light given by the other stars.the stars may be ussually much more brighter than stars

Answer 2

Stars usually flicker, planets don't

Answer 3

Relative motion with respect to more distant background stars. Planets will show parallax, the apparent angular shift in position of an object seen from two different observation points. Close objects exhibit a large parallax.

Either that, or I set up my telescope to peer into windows. Once in a while I get lucky and catch glimpse of a real heavenly body. That is, until the police arrive:

"But officer, I was only using the telescope as indicated on the box, to view heavenly bodies."

"Oh, that type of body. Sorry."

Answer 4

If you look through a telescope or even binoculars, you can often make out the circular shape of a planet. Only the most powerful telescopes can resolve stars to a disc, and even then only the most massive stars can be resolved - Betelgeuse is an example.

The term planet originally meant "wanderer". The ancient Greeks distinguished planets from the stars because they could be seen to move across the sky throughout the year, whereas the stars appeared fixed.

We now know of course that this is because the planets are much, much closer than the stars, and that they all orbit the Sun along with our planet.

Answer 5

star

Answer 6

Stars give off their own light.  Planets revolve around stars and are seen only by the light of the star they orbit.  If you're looking for planets in our solar system, the best way to locate them is by color and intensity.  Venus is the brightest star in the sky. It lies within 17 degrees of the sun and is usually what we call the morning star or the evening star. Jupiter is the next brightest.  It's all over the sky.  Mars is a faint red star.  Saturn a faint yellow star in the morning sky during winter.  They can all be observed quite nicely through a cheap telescope. Mercury is right next to the sun. It can only be seen for about 30 minutes after sunset and 30 minutes before sunrise when the conditions are right. I've never seen Uranis or Neptune, so I can't tell you about them.

Answer 7

by recording its motion.

the motion of planets and stars are very different.

Answer 8

only planets u can see are the ones in our solar system, so you only need to find them, and then you'll know the rest are stars

Answer 9

In general, stars twinkle but planets shine with a steady light. For example, if you go out tonight and look at Jupiter (the brightest object in the southern sky all night  if you're in the northern hemisphere) you'll see that it shines with a staedy light, while just about every other bright object shimmers and flickers. There are only five bright planets in the sky, and two of those (Mercury and Venus) never stray very far from the Sun, so generally the brightest object or objects you can see will be planets.

Answer 10

One way is to look at it through a telescope.  If the telescope is powerful enough, you can tell if it's a planet (since we're probably talking about some celestial body you can see, we can safely ignore the far planets in our Solar System that are not so easily visible).

But the most reliable way may be to track their position over several nights.  If the body moves in relation to nearby stars, it's a planet.  In fact, that's where the word "planet" comes from -- they were considered the "wanderers" in the sky.