0 a star that is so far from the earth that it seems not to move in relation to other distant (= far away) stars as the earth moves through space --
How do the sun and the moon hold to their courses and the fixed stars keep their places?
The concept of inertial frames of reference is no longer tied to either the fixed stars or to absolute space.
There is no ready-made infallible compass to guide us in this matter, and we can only follow the light of a few fixed stars.
The 24-hour rotation of the entire sky around the earth is ignored throughout the discussion, and only lunar motion relative to the fixed stars is considered.
The statement that "the system of fixed stars" is free of rotation may retain a relative meaning, which is to be fixed by a comparison.
A nebula or other starlike object may also be called a fixed star.
The time when a given fixed star crosses the observer's meridian depends on the geographic longitude.
This suggested it was not even a planet, but a fixed star in the stellar sphere beyond all the planets.
