Have you ever wondered how to determine the distance between two objects despite having so much distance between them? Yeah, It’s really hard but science has been able to achieve that. In fact, no matter how difficult the task, science finds a way out. In this article, I will briefly tell you how to measure the distance between Sun and Earth.
So, let’s find out how science made it possible.
The term light-year is often used to measure the distance of distant planets and stars. Kilometres are not a very convenient way to measure the distance of space objects outside the solar system. That’s why the light-year unit is used to measure such a huge distance. The enormity of the light-year goes beyond human imagination.
Before that let us know the definition of a light-year
The speed of light is 3 lakh kilometres per second. If the light travels at this speed for a year, then the distance that will be covered is called on light year. If you express the light-year with the help of kilometres, it will stand that One light-year is equal to nine million million kilometres.
Now think. How much it is!
The closest star to the solar system is Proxima Centauri which is four light-years away from us. Can you think?
The galaxies are hundreds or thousands of light-years away. So, what is the technique of measuring such a huge distance?
Although very difficult, this work can be done very easily. The ‘Parallex “ method is used to measure the distance of relatively nearby planets. It’s actually a very simple trick.
First, one finger of the hand should be held in front of the eyes. Then close the left eye and see the finger with the right eye. Again, close the right eye and see the finger with the right eye.
If you do left-right in this way, it will be seen that the fingers in moving back and forth. But the finger is fixed. Such changes are due to differences in the eyes.
Moving the finger more closer to the eye will increase movement. Moving the finger away again will reduce its movement. Then it is understood that based on the relativity of the eyes The movement is changing more or less.
That is if the finger is brought closer, the movement increases and if the finger is taken away, the movement decreases. If we can somehow figure out the distance between the two eyes and the amount of deviation from the target then we can easily find out how far the target is using the trigonometry formula.
The same method is used for the star.
But the star is so far away that it is impossible to understand their movement change with the help of a finger. if we keep our one eye millions of kilometers away from the other eye then maybe it would be possible.
we don’t have so much space and our eyes can’t be kept so far away. So, it would be impossible to measure.
But scientists have discovered a remarkable method for this and they use it to measure distant objects like planet and star.
We know that The diameter of the Earth’s around the sun is 186 million miles. That means the distance between where the earth is today and where it will be after six months is 186 million miles. It’s a fairly long distance. At such a distance, distant star parallax can be easily detected.
So let’s see how it can be diagnosed,
By measuring the position of a star from any position in the orbit, measuring that star again after six months, its distance can be determined by the Parallax method.
Between the two positions of the earth in known six months before and six months after, and the position of the star is known, it will be possible to find out the distance of the star from here by means of trigonometry.
But life is not so easy anymore and one does not stay beautiful all the time. Admittedly this method is remarkable but it is not effective in all cases
This method is only used to measure the distances of nearby planets and stars. But scientists also calculate the distance from one galaxy to another. In this case, they measure the distance based on the brightness of the star.
The brightness of the stars depends on their mass and size. Despite knowing the size and mass the problem still remains. If a brighter star is farther away from us and a less bright star is farther away, the less bright star will look brighter because of the distance. It is very troublesome and very difficult to get the perfect distance. But scientists have got rid of it. scientists use some proof stars for this.
And using this proof star, scientists determine the distance to the stars.
E.g. The distance from Earth to Venus is measured in a parallax method and then the distance from the sun to the earth is calculated in the same way with the help of Venus.
It was a common idea. If you like it or have any questions, you can comment in the comment box below. Thank you so much for reading the whole article carefully.
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