Why is stellar parallax important?

Question

Why is stellar parallax important?

1 Answer

Impact of this question

3411 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-03-18T13:52:41

Stellar parallax is very important for approximating distances of stars from us.

Explanation:

Stellar parallax is the apparent angular displacement of a star, observed from two different known locations, in relation to the almost stationary star.

If $α$ $alpha$ is the parallax for Radio Telescope observations ( from the surface of the Earth ) of the same star, in an exact interval of N days, the distance of the star from the observer is approximately
$\frac{sin (N \frac{θ}{2})}{sin (\frac{α}{2})}$ $sin(Ntheta/2)/sin (alpha/2)$ AU ,
where $θ = \frac{360}{365.256363}$ $theta= 360/365.256363$ deg.

1 ly = 62900 AU, nearly.

Science

Math

Humanities

... and beyond

Why is stellar parallax important?

1 Answer

Explanation:

Related questions

Impact of this question