Remove this ad

distance

Orion Revisited: Astronomers Find New Star Cluster in Front of the Orion Nebula

November 25, 2012

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter The well-known star-forming region of the Orion Nebula.  Credit: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope / Coelum (J.-C. Cuillandre & G. Anselmi) Precise distances are difficult to gauge in space, especially within the relatively local regions of the Galaxy. Stars which appear close together in [...]

Read the full article →

How To Measure the Universe

May 29, 2012

Measuring distance doesn’t sound like a very challenging thing to do — just pick your standard unit of choice and corresponding tool calibrated to it, and see how the numbers add up. Use a meter stick, a tape measure, or perhaps take a drive, and you can get a fairly accurate answer. But in astronomy, [...]

Read the full article →

What is an Astronomical Unit

September 29, 2010

Most people would not know what you are talking about if you picked astronomical units as a topic for conversation. However astronomical units are as crucial to the understanding of space as knowing the standard measuring system on Earth. So what is an astronomical unit? An astronomical unit is the basic unit of measurement for [...]

Read the full article →

What Is Parallax

September 15, 2010

Here is the short answer to ‘what is parallax’: it is an apparent displacement(difference) in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. It is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Objects that are closer to the solar system have a larger parallax than [...]

Read the full article →

Distance to Nearest Star

December 30, 2009

The nearest star system is Alpha Centauri. With the unaided eye, this looks like a very bright star, seen only from the southern hemisphere. But with a good telescope, you can actually see that Alpha Centauri is really two stars. They’re known as Alpha Centauri A and B. And with a really good telescope, there’s [...]

Read the full article →
Remove this ad

← Previous Entries