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By extension, it is a method for determining the distance to the star through trigonometry, the stellar parallax method. Created by the different orbital positions of Earth , the extremely small observed shift is largest at time intervals of about six months, when Earth arrives at opposite sides of the Sun in its orbit, giving a baseline ...
A parsec is the distance from the Sun to an astronomical object that has a parallax angle of one arcsecond (not to scale). The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to 3.26 light-years or 206,265 astronomical units (AU), i.e. 30.9 trillion kilometres (19.2 trillion miles).
Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. [1] [2] Due to foreshortening, nearby objects show a larger parallax than farther objects, so parallax can be used to determine distances.
This statistical parallax method is useful for measuring the distances of bright stars beyond 50 parsecs and giant variable stars, including Cepheids and the RR Lyrae variables. [8] Parallax measurements may be an important clue to understanding three of the universe's most elusive components: dark matter, dark energy and neutrinos. [9]
Spectroscopic parallax or main sequence fitting [1] is an astronomical method for measuring the distances to stars. Despite its name, it does not rely on the geometric parallax effect. The spectroscopic parallax technique can be applied to any main sequence star for which a spectrum can be recorded.
Samuel Birley Rowbotham (/ ˈ r oʊ b ɒ t ə m /; [1] 1816 – 23 December 1884, in London) was an English inventor, writer, utopian socialist [2] and flat Earther who wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe under the pseudonym Parallax. His work was originally published as a 16-page pamphlet (1849), and later expanded into a book (1865).
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