space distance

[Ultimate Badass]

how the hell do they measure the huge distanced in space?

 

[Olorin]

Parallaxis (greek)

Put your finger in front of your eyes, now look at it with one eya and then the other, compare the position of your finger with a distant object, the angle of both changes a little when you change your eyes, if you know the distance between your eyes you can calculate the distance of the object, so the earth observatories take pictures twice a year when the distance is sufficient (when we are half way arround the sun) and than applying the suttle changes that occur besides the change in angle (because other stuff moves too - like trying to spot a moving person while youre spinning in an amusement park) they can calculate the distance

there are many more tricks we can use but this one is the oldest and is still one of the most important

anyway this is a simple description

 

[HotShot]

Cause God said so U_U lol Algalon is right U_U

 

[NarutoKage2]

Parallaxis (greek)

Put your finger in front of your eyes, now look at it with one eya and then the other, compare the position of your finger with a distant object, the angle of both changes a little when you change your eyes, if you know the distance between your eyes you can calculate the distance of the object, so the earth observatories take pictures twice a year when the distance is sufficient (when we are half way arround the sun) and than applying the suttle changes that occur besides the change in angle (because other stuff moves too - like trying to spot a moving person while youre spinning in an amusement park) they can calculate the distance

there are many more tricks we can use but this one is the oldest and is still one of the most important

anyway this is a simple description

I thought they just send waves(whose speed is known) and measure the time it takes for them to come back after bouncing off certain objects, sort of how like radio altimeters work in planes and the use of sonar to measure the depth of the sea?

I read about this once but don't really remember.

 

[Necron]

They pray to dark lord Lucifer, and he gives them the answears... All hail Lucifer... U_U

 

[Olorin]

I thought they just send waves(whose speed is known) and measure the time it takes for them to come back after bouncing off certain objects, sort of how like radio altimeters work in planes and the use of sonar to measure the depth of the sea?

I read about this once but don't really remember.

well yes that works for close and large objects like planets, but you cant bounce a laser of a star not even sun which is close because there is lots of other radiation, also all objects which arent in our solar system are too far away

the closest star is proxima centauri which is 4.242 light years away, multiple that time by 2 and thats how long it would take the laser to come back not to mention that we would actually have to hit the targets

 

[Anduril]

Most of the time it depends on how far is the object and algalon has explained one of the methods.

 

[NarutoKage2]

well yes that works for close and large objects like planets, but you cant bounce a laser of a star not even sun which is close because there is lots of other radiation, also all objects which arent in our solar system are too far away

the closest star is proxima centauri which is 4.242 light years away, multiple that time by 2 and thats how long it would take the laser to come back not to mention that we would actually have to hit the targets

yeah that, or they can compare the difference in luminosity of the stars as well.

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Its parallax, btw not parallaxis

 

[Olorin]

yeah that, or they can compare the difference in luminosity of the stars as well.

For anyone else who wants to know:

You must be registered for see links

Its parallax, btw not parallaxis

parallax is derived from the greek word PARALLAXIS, hence:

Parallaxis (greek)

i partly do this for my job now so XD ... well my coworkers which are astrophysicists do, but i help sometimes