The Sun and the solar system (and ourselves) are latecomers in the universe. The universe was in existence for around ten billion years before the formation of the solar system. Another four-and-a-half billion years passed before Homo sapiens arose to survey the surroundings. When the solar system formed, the universe would have long settled down into its present familiar appearance, complete with galaxies and stars, and would have looked much the same as today. However, due to the slow relative movements of the stars, our familiar constellations, such as Orion the Hunter and his companion, the Great Dog (Canis Major), will be rearranged and replaced by other groupings in the future. Edmond Halley (1656–1742) seems to have been one of the first to have realized this, when he observed that the positions of many stars in the early 18th century differed from those recorded in the catalogue of Hipparchus in the second century BC.

Our nearest star (Proxima Centauri, an 11th magnitude M5 red dwarf and the faintest of a triple-stellar system of which Alpha Centauri is the brightest) is about 4.3 light-years or about 1.3 pc distant from Earth. Although Proxima Centauri is the nearest star at present, the dwarf star Ross 248 will succeed to the title in about 33,000 Earth years [1].