NATS 1745 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Stellar Parallax, Star Catalogue, Parsec

• School: York University
• Department: Natural Science
• Course: NATS 1745
• Professor: Robin Metcalfe

Document Summary

Beginning from the 1700s, there were many attempts to determine the distances to the stars in order to establish our location in the larger universe. Up until the 1800s, no one had been able to determine the distance to stars. The distance to stars was valuable because then we could then have a sense of how we fit in the universe. The dista(cid:374)(cid:272)e to a sta(cid:396) (cid:272)a(cid:374) (cid:271)e de(cid:396)i(cid:448)ed f(cid:396)o(cid:373) its pa(cid:396)alla(cid:454) shift due to ea(cid:396)th"s (cid:373)otio(cid:374) a(cid:396)ou(cid:374)d the. *the baseline is the distance between our observation points. the longer the baseline, the greater parallax shift we induce in an object because parallaxes are due to our motions. This effect of the baseline on parallax is the source of the problem with detecting a stellar parallax. The p(cid:396)o(cid:271)le(cid:373) is that the(cid:396)e"s a li(cid:373)it as to ho(cid:449) (cid:271)ig of a (cid:271)aseli(cid:374)e (cid:449)e (cid:272)a(cid:374) a(cid:272)hie(cid:448)e o(cid:374) ea(cid:396)th.