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In units, they use light years or parsecs.
They calculate the distances by studying the shifts in apparent position of the stars as the Earth moves around the Sun and then applying some clever mathematics and geometry. This is for closer stars. For remote stars or galaxies, they measure the intensity and spectrum of lightnto tell how farnthe star is. If you see some cars on a road during the night, you can tell how far they are based on how bright the lights are. Pretty easy, because all cars have allmost same road lights. But the problem is that if you're looking at stars in the night sky, if a star is at a certain distance from you its brightness can't really be used as a measure of how far away it is because a bigger star will be brighter and because light gets dimmer the farther it is from you a big star can be a lot farther away than a small star and yet they'll both appear exactly the same brightness. How do you solve that one? This kept astronomers guessing for a very long time until about the turn of last century. A woman in contact with Hubble, after whom the Hubble Space Telescope is named, solved the problem. Her name was Henrietta Levitt and she was looking at star charts. She noticed that some star appeared to get bigger and brighter and then dimmer and weaker. They did it with a regular period. These have now become known as the stellar yardsticks. They're called Cepheid variables. They're stars that swell up and shrink down. Because the period at which they do that varies with the size of the star you therefore know, if you look at how often a star like that is blinking on and off, you know how big it is. Therefore you know how bright it is. Because light follows an inverse square law you can work backwards to work out how bright that star must be and therefore how far away it is. Scientists now use these Cepheid variables when they look at a distant star structure they can use the period of any Cepheid variables that are there to work out how far away those particular entities are. That's a stellar yardstick and it was solved by a lady at Harvard a hundred years ago
What else can I help you with?
What unit would you use to measure the distances from stars?
To measure the distance of stars you have to measure by light years.
What are the units called that measure distances to stars?
They measure them in light-years.
Mathematician and astronomer who made accurate measurements of thousands of stellar distances?
Hipparchus, an ancient Greek astronomer, is known for his accurate measurements of stellar distances by developing a catalog of over 850 stars. His work laid the foundation for modern trigonometric parallax, allowing for more precise calculations of the distances to stars. His discoveries significantly advanced the understanding of the cosmos.
The unit to measure distances between stars is in?
Light years or parsecs
What do you call a person who study the stars?
An astronomer
How do astronomers measure distances from Earth to stars and what methods do they use?
Astronomers measure distances from Earth to stars using a method called parallax, which involves observing the apparent shift in a star's position as Earth orbits the Sun. They also use techniques like spectroscopy and standard candles to estimate distances to stars that are farther away.
Who developed the first system to measure a stars brightness?
It was on a Quantitative scale by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 130 BC.
What did Henrietta Swan Leavitt do?
Henrietta Swan Leavitt was an American astronomer who discovered the relationship between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variable stars. This discovery provided a way to measure the distances to faraway galaxies and paved the way for important advancements in the field of astronomy.
Who first used RR Lyrae variable stars to determine distances in your milky way?
The first person to use RR Lyrae variable stars to determine distances in the Milky Way was astronomer Henrietta Leavitt in the early 1900s. She discovered the relationship between the luminosity and the pulsation period of these stars, which allowed astronomers to calculate their distances based on their apparent brightness. This groundbreaking work laid the foundation for establishing the scale of distances in our galaxy.
Why do we measure the movement of stars?
Parallax is the apparent change in position of an object when you look at it from different angles. Astronomers often us parallax to measure distances to nearby stars. This method can be used to determine stars' distances up to 400 light-years from Earth.
Is it true that kilometers and astronomical units are too small to be used to measure distances to stars?
Yes.
What unit of distance do astronomers use to measure distances to stars?
Usually light-years, or parsecs.
