Everyone is always predicting the end of the world. Someone’s going to tell you that this the year that it’s all going to end… the end of planet Earth… and they’re always wrong. But, someone will eventually be right. Planet Earth is doomed, lets figure out how.

Have you checked out the internet lately? Apparently there is some kind of rogue planet causing pole alignment and a killer solar flare that will set off a chain reaction turning the whole universe into strange-matter…. after an alien invasion.

Astronomy depends on bullying light. We reflect it, refract it, bend it, and near it through complex manipulations of light. Though optics we bring we bring the distant universe to our eyepiece.

Our Universe appears timeless and unchanging, the stars taking their nightly flight across the sky. But over long periods of time, you realize that our local region, and even the entire Milky Way is in constant motion. The constellations we see today would be very different millions or even thousands of years ago. Today we’ll discuss stellar motion, how astronomers detect it and how it’s useful.