Have you ever tried to spot a planet in a sky full of stars? If you know what you’re looking for this could be an easy task, or you might make use of a handy sky guide app on your smart device to help point you in the right direction. But Australia’s First Peoples have maintained an intimate connection to the night sky based on 65,000+ years of observation, and this includes a detailed understanding of the planets and their complex motions in the sky.
The five planets visible to the unaided eye – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – are much closer to us than distant stars, and appear to move among the background canopy. Some move quickly, like swift Mercury. Others move at a grandfatherly pace, like distant Saturn. The ancient Greeks called these celestial bodies , meaning “wanderers”. Westerners know them today by their Roman names, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
