Serious astronomical research generally requires a remote mountaintop observatory, but you probably already own a surprisingly effective outpost for studying the universe: your car. There is much you can learn simply by looking and listening as you drive. Some examples:
1. When it’s raining or snowing, notice that the flakes or drops hitting the windshield seem to come from a single spot ahead of you. Step on the gas, and that radiating point descends nearly to eye level. Hit the brakes, and it rises. Your movement affects the apparent position of objects around you, an effect known as aberration. In 1728 English astronomer James Bradley showed how this phenomenon influences starlight too. Like precipitation, stars appear in false places in the sky—in this case, because of Earth’s motion around the sun at 67,000 miles per hour. Each star’s apparent position can be as much as 1/180 of a degree from its true location.
