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03:39 PM
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Calling All Amateur Astronomers! How far away are stars? How do we determine this distance? What makes it reliable?
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[quote:Whiskey Brother 969666:MV8xNTU2MzY0XzI1NzA4MTEyX0FCNEExMDI4] [quote:SaveTheLivingEntities] [quote:Obscura] Google it [/quote] I wasn't asking Google. I was asking a person. I know what Google has to say on the subject. This is called a discussion forum, not a "Google it" forum. I am in the process of discussing information with my targeted audience of amateur astronomers. [/quote] Once you understand that the light that you are seeing as stars right now, left each individual star hundreds, or thousands, or even millions of years ago, and they could possibly no longer even exist, you begin to grasp just how large the space between stars really is. Once you have on understanding of that, you can can grasp the concept of "that aint dick compared to the empty space between galaxies. Add to that the fact that some of those stars are as big as our entire solar system, and that the Sun is relatively tiny compared to some of the big monster stars out there, and knowing the exact distance in miles becomes meaningless. Some stars that you can see are 87623514426437328134985764303478564789569428375759565846945543543856093485769567986572437346754677043956740 miles from Earth, so distances that big are not even easily expressed, which is why we use the phrase "light years" which is the distance that light travels in one year. Even THINKING that us hairless talking apes can understand distances that great, with any degree of accuracy, is a huge egotistical way to think. [/quote]
Original Message
How do we measure how far away stars are from us?
What method of measurement is used?
How do we know its accuracy?
I bring up these questions out of serious curiosity.
[UPDATE]
Hello everyone. The topic has evolved to a discussion on this information.
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