Where is earth located in Universe?

[jac]

I live on coast of South Carolina.
When I look straight up at sky at midnight, I see the stars.
When I look straight up at sky at noon, I see blue sky.

Question #0 Am I correct in assuming there is a 180-degrees difference between sky at noon and sky at mid-night?
Question #1: If I could turn the sun off at noon, would the stars I would then see when looking straight up at noon be as far away as the ones I see at midnight?
Question#2: If so, are we at the center of the universe, or somewhere in between?
Question#3: If somewhere in between, what is the approximate sum of noon and midnight distances above, in light years?
Question#4: When looking straight up at the North Pole and the South Pole, would one see all different stars?
Question#5: When astronomers speak of looking back at creation of universe, aka, the big bang, from where are they looking: the night sky?, daylight sky? from the North Pole? the South Pole?
Final Question: Where on the earth and at what date would we look straight up to see the center of the big bang?

Thank you for any or all answers. My grandson has asked me all these questions, and I have no way of beginning to answer him.

[neufer]

I live on coast of South Carolina.
When I look straight up at sky at midnight, I see the stars.
When I look straight up at sky at noon, I see blue sky.

Question #0: Am I correct in assuming that there is 180 degrees difference between sky at noon and sky at mid-night?
Question #1: If I could turn the sun off at noon, would the stars I would then see when looking straight at noon be as far away as the ones I see at midnight?
Question#2: If so, are we at the center of the universe, or somewhere in between?
Question#3: If somewhere in between, what is the approximate sum of noon and midnight distances above, in light years?
Question#4: When looking straight up at the North Pole and the South Pole, one would see all different stars?
Question#5: When astronomers speak of looking back at creation of universe, aka, the big bang, they looking from: the night sky?, daylight sky? from the North Pole? the South Pole?
Final Question: Where on the earth and at what date would we look straight up to see the center of the big bang?

Thank you for any or all answers. My grandson has asked me all these questions, and I have no way of beginning to answer him.

Question #0: There is 180 degrees difference between sky meridian at noon and sky meridian at mid-night.

Question #1: The average distance of the daytime stars (excluding the sun) is the same as that of the nighttime stars.
(Six months from now the daytime stars will become the nighttime stars & vise-versa.)

Question#2: We are at the center of the universe that is visible to us
just as everyone else is at the center of the universe that is visible to them.
However, the actual entire universe has no center.

Question#3: I don't really understand this question however:
Of the brightest stars:
Sirius is the closest at 8.5 light-years
and Betelgeuse is the most distant at 640 light-years.

Question#4: When looking at any part of the sky one would see all different stars at the North Pole and the South Pole.

Question#5: When astronomers speak of looking back at creation of universe, aka, the cosmic radiation left over from the big bang, they are generally looking from space in all directions. However the big bang was first observed from earth and the South Pole has the best views from earth.

Final Question: One can't directly see the big bang; however, if you turn on an old analog TV anywhere at any time of day 1% of the static white dots you see on the screen are coming from the cosmic radiation left over from the big bang. (We just can't tell you which dot it is or what direction in the sky it comes from.)

[Chris Peterson]

Question#2: If so, are we at the center of the universe, or somewhere in between?

We are at the center of the Universe, because every place can be considered the center of the Universe- assuming you are talking about three dimensions.

Question#5: When astronomers speak of looking back at creation of universe, aka, the big bang, where are they looking from: the night sky?, daylight sky? from the North Pole? the South Pole?

Any or all of those. We can't see to the Big Bang, only to the era where the Universe became transparent to radiation. We see that as microwave radiation coming from all directions.

Final Question: Where on the earth and at what date would we look straight up to see the center of the big bang?

There is no center of the Big Bang. You can see the earliest Universe detectable by looking in any direction at any time.

[jac]

Gentlemen,

I would like to thank both Neufer and Chris L Peterson for answering my questions concerning
Where is Earth located in Universe? As they modestly did not reveal their titles, I assume from their discussions
they are either professors and/or professional astronomers, and likely PhD's as well.

I appreciate your time gentlemen.

*****************************************
Chris L Peterson
Cloudbait Observatory
Neufer on Fri Nov 06, 2009 11:40 am