{"id":595,"date":"2022-03-02T17:36:56","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T17:36:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=595"},"modified":"2022-04-29T18:06:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T18:06:49","slug":"19-2-surveying-the-stars","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/chapter\/19-2-surveying-the-stars\/","title":{"raw":"19.2 Surveying the Stars","rendered":"19.2 Surveying the Stars"},"content":{"raw":"<div class=\"textbox textbox--learning-objectives\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1168582970085\">By the end of this section, you will be able to:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<ul id=\"fs-id1165722201426\">\r\n \t<li>Understand the concept of triangulating distances to distant objects, including stars<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Explain why space-based satellites deliver more precise distances than ground-based methods<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Discuss astronomers\u2019 efforts to determine the distance of the stars closest to the Sun<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721890895\" class=\"has-noteref\">It is an enormous step to go from the planets to the stars. For example, our Voyager 1 probe, which was launched in 1977, has now traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft. As of 2021, Voyager 1 is 152 AU from the Sun.<sup id=\"footnote-ref1\" data-type=\"footnote-number\"><a role=\"doc-noteref\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#fs-id1165721354204\" data-type=\"footnote-link\">1<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The nearest star, however, is hundreds of thousands of AU from Earth. Even so, we can, in principle, survey distances to the stars using the same technique that a civil engineer employs to survey the distance to an inaccessible mountain or tree\u2014the method of\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">triangulation<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<section id=\"fs-id1165722138015\" data-depth=\"1\">\r\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Triangulation in Space<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721884539\">A practical example of triangulation is your own depth perception. As you are pleased to discover every morning when you look in the mirror, your two eyes are located some distance apart. You therefore view the world from two different vantage points, and it is this dual perspective that allows you to get a general sense of how far away objects are.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721911609\">To see what we mean, take a pen and hold it a few inches in front of your face. Look at it first with one eye (closing the other) and then switch eyes. Note how the pen seems to shift relative to objects across the room. Now hold the pen at arm\u2019s length: the shift is less. If you play with moving the pen for a while, you will notice that the farther away you hold it, the less it seems to shift. Your brain automatically performs such comparisons and gives you a pretty good sense of how far away things in your immediate neighborhood are.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721902601\">If your arms were made of rubber, you could stretch the pen far enough away from your eyes that the shift would become imperceptible. This is because our depth perception fails for objects more than a few tens of meters away. In order to see the shift of an object a city block or more from you, your eyes would need to be spread apart a lot farther.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721912109\">Let\u2019s see how surveyors take advantage of the same idea. Suppose you are trying to measure the distance to a tree across a deep river (Figure 19.4). You set up two observing stations some distance apart. That distance (line AB in\u00a0Figure 19.4) is called the\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">baseline<\/em>. Now the direction to the tree (C in the figure) in relation to the baseline is observed from each station. Note that C appears in different directions from the two stations. This apparent change in direction of the remote object due to a change in vantage point of the observer is called\u00a0<span id=\"term1026\" data-type=\"term\">parallax<\/span>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Triang\" class=\"os-figure\">\r\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Triang\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"732\"]<img id=\"2\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/8e3b72d151fd64f3dc8d43cdecb0c8851dd19ab7\" alt=\"Illustration of the Triangulation Method. In this illustration a surveyor\u2019s transit is shown at two positions along a stream of water. Position \u201cA\u201d is at the center left of this image, and position \u201cB\u201d is just below the center of the illustration. They are separated by a distance labeled \u201cBaseline,\u201d with a black line drawn connecting the two. Both instruments are being used to measure the distance to a tree on the far side of the stream which is located at the upper right corner in the illustration. The tree is labeled \u201cC.\u201d Black lines are drawn from positions \u201cA\u201d and \u201cB\u201d to the tree at \u201cC\u201d to create the triangle ABC. A dashed line is drawn from the center of the baseline to point \u201cC.\u201d A curved arrow is drawn from the baseline to the line AC to represent the angle between the baseline and line AC.\" width=\"732\" height=\"475\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure\u00a019.4<\/strong>\u00a0Triangulation.\u00a0Triangulation allows us to measure distances to inaccessible objects. By getting the angle to a tree from two different vantage points, we can calculate the properties of the triangle they make and thus the distance to the tree.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721391551\">The parallax is also the angle that lines AC and BC make\u2014in mathematical terms, the angle subtended by the baseline. A knowledge of the angles at A and B and the length of the baseline, AB, allows the triangle ABC to be solved for any of its dimensions\u2014say, the distance AC or BC. The solution could be reached by constructing a scale drawing or by using trigonometry to make a numerical calculation. If the tree were farther away, the whole triangle would be longer and skinnier, and the parallax angle would be smaller. Thus, we have the general rule that the smaller the parallax, the more distant the object we are measuring must be.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722053186\">In practice, the kinds of baselines surveyors use for measuring distances on Earth are completely useless when we try to gauge distances in space. The farther away an astronomical object lies, the longer the baseline has to be to give us a reasonable chance of making a measurement. Unfortunately, nearly all astronomical objects are very far away. To measure their distances requires a very large baseline and highly precise angular measurements. The\u00a0<span id=\"term1027\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Moon<\/span>\u00a0is the only object near enough that its distance can be found fairly accurately with measurements made without a telescope. Ptolemy determined the distance to the Moon correctly to within a few percent. He used the turning Earth itself as a baseline, measuring the position of the Moon relative to the stars at two different times of night.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721293060\">With the aid of telescopes, later astronomers were able to measure the distances to the nearer planets and asteroids using Earth\u2019s diameter as a baseline. This is how the AU was first established. To reach for the stars, however, requires a much longer baseline for triangulation and extremely sensitive measurements. Such a baseline is provided by Earth\u2019s annual trip around the Sun.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/section><section id=\"fs-id1165722257963\" data-depth=\"1\">\r\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Distances to Stars<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721903599\">As Earth travels from one side of its orbit to the other, it graciously provides us with a baseline of 2 AU, or about 300 million kilometers. Although this is a much bigger baseline than the diameter of Earth, the stars are\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">so far away<\/em>\u00a0that the resulting parallax shift is\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">still<\/em>\u00a0not visible to the naked eye\u2014not even for the closest stars.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722097273\">In the chapter on\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy, we discussed how this dilemma perplexed the ancient Greeks, some of whom had actually suggested that the Sun might be the center of the solar system, with Earth in motion around it. Aristotle and others argued, however, that Earth could not be revolving about the Sun. If it were, they said, we would surely observe the parallax of the nearer stars against the background of more distant objects as we viewed the sky from different parts of Earth\u2019s orbit (<a class=\"autogenerated-content\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">Figu<\/a>r<a class=\"autogenerated-content\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">e 19.6<\/a>). Tycho Brahe (1546\u20131601) advanced the same faulty argument nearly 2000 years later, when his careful measurements of stellar positions with the unaided eye revealed no such shift.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721960886\">These early observers did not realize how truly distant the stars were and how small the change in their positions therefore was, even with the entire orbit of Earth as a baseline. The problem was that they did not have tools to measure parallax shifts too small to be seen with the human eye. By the eighteenth century, when there was no longer serious doubt about Earth\u2019s revolution, it became clear that the stars must be extremely distant. Astronomers equipped with telescopes began to devise instruments capable of measuring the tiny shifts of nearby stars relative to the background of more distant (and thus unshifting) celestial objects.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721891569\">This was a significant technical challenge, since, even for the nearest stars, parallax angles are usually only a fraction of a second of arc. Recall that one second of arc (arcsec) is an angle of only 1\/3600 of a degree. A coin the size of a US quarter would appear to have a diameter of 1 arcsecond if you were viewing it from a distance of about 5 kilometers (3 miles). Think about how small an angle that is. No wonder it took astronomers a long time before they could measure such tiny shifts.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722132349\">The first successful detections of stellar parallax were in the year 1838, when Friedrich\u00a0<span id=\"term1028\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bessel<\/span>\u00a0in Germany (Figure 19.5), Thomas\u00a0<span id=\"term1029\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Henderson<\/span>, a Scottish astronomer working at the Cape of Good Hope, and Friedrich\u00a0<span id=\"term1030\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Struve<\/span>\u00a0in Russia independently measured the parallaxes of the stars 61 Cygni,\u00a0<span id=\"term1031\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, and\u00a0<span id=\"term1032\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Vega<\/span>, respectively. Even the closest star, Alpha Centauri, showed a total displacement of only about 1.5 arcseconds during the course of a year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Bessel\" class=\"os-figure\">\r\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Bessel\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"975\"]<img id=\"4\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/76787656cd204cae89f99aa4b2bd81bcff63dde5\" alt=\"Portraits of (a) Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, (b) Thomas Henderson, and (c) Friedrich Struve.\" width=\"975\" height=\"430\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure\u00a019.5<\/strong>\u00a0Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784\u20131846), Thomas J. Henderson (1798\u20131844), and Friedrich Struve (1793\u20131864).\u00a0(a) Bessel made the first authenticated measurement of the distance to a star (61 Cygni) in 1838, a feat that had eluded many dedicated astronomers for almost a century. But two others, (b) Scottish astronomer Thomas J. Henderson and (c) Friedrich Struve, in Russia, were close on his heels.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721344527\">Figure 19.6\u00a0shows how such measurements work. Seen from opposite sides of Earth\u2019s orbit, a nearby star shifts position when compared to a pattern of more distant stars. Astronomers actually define parallax to be\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">one-half<\/em>\u00a0the angle that a star shifts when seen from opposite sides of Earth\u2019s orbit (the angle labeled\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">P<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Figure 19.6). The reason for this definition is just that they prefer to deal with a baseline of 1 AU instead of 2 AU.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\" class=\"os-figure\">\r\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"975\"]<img id=\"6\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/43673e1b873dee8c9117033e00f64c35664f5207\" alt=\"Illustration of Parallax. The Sun is drawn as a yellow disk in the left hand portion of the diagram and is labeled \u201cSun.\u201d A blue circle surrounds the Sun and is labeled \u201cEarth\u2019s orbit.\u201d The Earth is shown at two positions on the blue circle. Position \u201cA\u201d at the bottom of the circle and \u201cB\u201d at the top. Above and to the right of the center, a nearby star is drawn as an unlabeled red dot. In the upper right is an unlabeled group of five stars that are more distant than the red star. A white line is drawn from position A through the red dot to the uppermost stars in the group. A white line is drawn from position B through the red dot to the middle star in the group. A dashed line is drawn from the Sun to the red dot. The parallax angle, \u201cp,\u201d is drawn between the dashed line and line B. To illustrate the effect of parallax, two insets are included near points A and B. The inset at point B is labeled \u201cSky as seen from B,\u201d and shows the red dot near the middle star of the group of five stars that are illustrated in the upper right side of the figure. The inset at point A is labeled \u201cSky as seen from A,\u201d and shows the red dot near the uppermost stars of the group of five stars that are illustrated in the upper right side of the figure.\" width=\"975\" height=\"519\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure\u00a019.6<\/strong>\u00a0Parallax.\u00a0As Earth revolves around the Sun, the direction in which we see a nearby star varies with respect to distant stars. We define the\u00a0parallax\u00a0of the nearby star to be one half of the total change in direction, and we usually measure it in arcseconds.[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Link to Learning<\/h3>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n\r\nUse the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30parallaxmod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Astronomical Parallax model<\/a>\u00a0to explore how the Earth\u2019s motion around the Sun causes nearby stars to appear to \u201cwobble\u201d back and forth compared to background stars. Click on the Orbit box, and use the view along the bottom to see the apparent motion of the nearby object.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Units of Stellar Distance<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721933252\">With a baseline of one AU, how far away would a star have to be to have a parallax of 1 arcsecond? The answer turns out to be 206,265 AU, or 3.26 light-years. This is equal to [latex]3.1 \\times {10^{13}}[\/latex]\u00a0kilometers (in other words, 31 trillion kilometers). We give this unit a special name, the\u00a0<span id=\"term1034\" data-type=\"term\">parsec<\/span>\u00a0(pc)\u2014derived from \u201cthe distance at which we have a\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">par<\/em>allax of one\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">sec<\/em>ond.\u201d The distance (<em data-effect=\"italics\">D<\/em>) of a star in parsecs is just the reciprocal of its parallax (<em data-effect=\"italics\">p<\/em>) in arcseconds; that is,<\/p>\r\n\r\n<math display=\"block\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\"><semantics><mrow><mrow><mi>D<\/mi><mo>=<\/mo><mfrac><mn>1<\/mn><mi>p<\/mi><\/mfrac><\/mrow><\/mrow><annotation-xml encoding=\"MathML-Content\"><mrow><mi>D<\/mi><mo>=<\/mo><mfrac><mn>1<\/mn><mi>p<\/mi><\/mfrac><\/mrow><\/annotation-xml><\/semantics><\/math>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721953539\">Thus, a star with a parallax of 0.1 arcsecond would be found at a distance of 10 parsecs, and one with a parallax of 0.05 arcsecond would be 20 parsecs away.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722251126\">Back in the days when most of our distances came from parallax measurements, a parsec was a useful unit of distance, but it is not as intuitive as the light-year. One advantage of the light-year as a unit is that it emphasizes the fact that, as we look out into space, we are also looking back into time. The light that we see from a star 100 light-years away left that star 100 years ago. What we study is not the star as it is now, but rather as it was in the past. The light that reaches our telescopes today from distant galaxies left them before Earth even existed.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721941485\">In this text, we will use light-years as our unit of distance, but many astronomers still use parsecs when they write technical papers or talk with each other at meetings. To convert between the two distance units, just bear in mind: 1 parsec = 3.26 light-year, and 1 light-year = 0.31 parsec.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--key-takeaways\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Astronomy Basics<\/h3>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n<h4 id=\"8\" class=\"os-subtitle\" data-type=\"title\"><span class=\"os-subtitle-label\">Naming Stars<\/span><\/h4>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721960993\">You may be wondering why stars have such a confusing assortment of names. Just look at the first three stars to have their parallaxes measured: 61 Cygni,\u00a0<span id=\"term1036\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, and\u00a0<span id=\"term1037\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Vega<\/span>. Each of these names comes from a different tradition of designating stars.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721819749\">The brightest stars have names that derive from the ancients. Some are from the Greek, such as\u00a0<span id=\"term1038\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Sirius<\/span>, which means \u201cthe scorched one\u201d\u2014a reference to its brilliance. A few are from Latin, but many of the best-known names are from Arabic because, as discussed in\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy, much of Greek and Roman astronomy was \u201crediscovered\u201d in Europe after the Dark Ages by means of Arabic translations. Vega, for example, means \u201cswooping Eagle,\u201d and\u00a0<span id=\"term1039\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Betelgeuse<\/span>\u00a0(pronounced \u201cBeetle-juice\u201d) means \u201cright hand of the central one.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721954321\">In 1603, German astronomer Johann\u00a0<span id=\"term1040\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bayer<\/span>\u00a0(1572\u20131625) introduced a more systematic approach to naming stars. For each constellation, he assigned a Greek letter to the brightest stars, roughly in order of brightness. In the constellation of Orion, for example, Betelgeuse is the brightest star, so it got the first letter in the Greek alphabet\u2014alpha\u2014and is known as Alpha Orionis. (\u201cOrionis\u201d is the possessive form of Orion, so Alpha Orionis means \u201cthe first of Orion.\u201d) A star called Rigel, being the second brightest in that constellation, is called Beta Orionis (Figure 19.7). Since there are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet, this system allows the labeling of 24 stars in each constellation, but constellations have many more stars than that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Orion\" class=\"os-figure\">\r\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Orion\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"917\"]<img id=\"10\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/4065f747a3a8dc03b963f85ad51ff409575cf260\" alt=\"Orion. Panel (a) is a photograph of the constellation Orion. Yellow Betelgeuse is at the upper left of this image, and blue Rigel is at the lower right. The three stars of Orion\u2019s belt are just below center. Panel (b) is a contemporary star-chart of Orion. The brightest stars are shown with their proper names and Greek letter designations. From top to bottom are, \u201cMeissa (lambda),\u201d \u201cBetelgeuse (alpha),\u201d \u201cBellatrix (gamma),\u201d \u201cMintaka (delta),\u201d \u201cAlnilam (epsilon),\u201d \u201cAlnitak (zeta),\u201d \u201cRigel (beta),\u201d and \u201cSaiph (kappa).\u201d Also shown, circled in red, are the nebulae \u201cM 78,\u201d \u201cM 42\u201d and \u201cM 43.\u201d\" width=\"917\" height=\"588\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure\u00a019.7<\/strong>\u00a0Objects in Orion.\u00a0(a) This image shows the brightest objects in or near the star pattern of Orion, the hunter (of Greek mythology), in the constellation of Orion. (b) Note the Greek letters of Bayer\u2019s system in this diagram of the Orion constellation. The objects denoted M42, M43, and M78 are not stars but nebulae\u2014clouds of gas and dust; these numbers come from a list of \u201cfuzzy objects\u201d made by Charles Messier in 1781. (credit a: modification of work by Matthew Spinelli; credit b: modification of work by ESO, IAU and\u00a0Sky &amp; Telescope)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722258520\">In 1725, the English Astronomer Royal John\u00a0<span id=\"term1041\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Flamsteed<\/span>\u00a0introduced yet another system, in which the brighter stars eventually got a number in each constellation in order of their location in the sky or, more precisely, their right ascension. (The system of sky coordinates that includes right ascension was discussed in\u00a0Earth, Moon, and Sky.) In this system,\u00a0<span id=\"term1042\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Betelgeuse<\/span>\u00a0is called 58 Orionis and 61 Cygni is the 61st star in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721956192\">It gets worse. As astronomers began to understand more and more about stars, they drew up a series of specialized star catalogs, and fans of those catalogs began calling stars by their catalog numbers. If you look at\u00a0Appendix I\u2014our list of the nearest stars (many of which are much too faint to get an ancient name,\u00a0<span id=\"term1043\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bayer letter<\/span>, or\u00a0<span id=\"term1044\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Flamsteed number<\/span>)\u2014you will see references to some of these catalogs. An example is a set of stars labeled with a BD number, for \u201cBonner Durchmusterung.\u201d This was a mammoth catalog of over 324,000 stars in a series of zones in the sky, organized at the Bonn Observatory in the 1850s and 1860s. Keep in mind that this catalog was made before photography or computers came into use, so the position of each star had to be measured (at least twice) by eye, a daunting undertaking.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722092610\">There is also a completely different system for keeping track of stars whose luminosity varies, and another for stars that brighten explosively at unpredictable times. Astronomers have gotten used to the many different star-naming systems, but students often find them bewildering and wish astronomers would settle on one. Don\u2019t hold your breath: in astronomy, as in many fields of human thought, tradition holds a powerful attraction. Still, with high-speed computer databases to aid human memory, names may become less and less necessary. Today\u2019s astronomers often refer to stars by their precise locations in the sky rather than by their names or various catalog numbers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">The Nearest Stars<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721856897\">No known star (other than the Sun) is within 1 light-year or even 1 parsec of Earth. The stellar neighbors nearest the Sun are three stars in the constellation of Centaurus. To the unaided eye, the brightest of these three stars is\u00a0<span id=\"term1045\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, which is only 30<sup>\u25cb<\/sup>\u00a0from the south celestial pole and hence not visible from the mainland United States. Alpha Centauri itself is a binary star\u2014two stars in mutual revolution\u2014too close together to be distinguished without a telescope. These two stars are 4.4 light-years from us. Nearby is a third faint star, known as\u00a0<span id=\"term1046\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Proxima Centauri<\/span>. Proxima, with a distance of 4.3 light-years, is slightly closer to us than the other two stars. If Proxima Centauri is part of a triple star system with the binary Alpha Centauri, as seems likely, then its orbital period may be longer than 500,000 years.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721974521\">Proxima Centauri is an example of the most common type of star, and our most common type of stellar neighbor (as we saw in Stars: A Celestial Census.) Low-mass red M dwarfs make up about 70% of all stars and dominate the census of stars within 10 parsecs (33 light-years) of the Sun. For example, a recent survey of the solar neighborhood counted 357 stars and brown dwarfs within 10 parsecs, and 248 of these are red dwarfs. Yet, if you wanted to see an M dwarf with your naked eye, you would be out of luck. These stars only produce a fraction of the Sun\u2019s light, and nearly all of them require a telescope to be detected.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721971860\">The nearest star visible without a telescope from most of the United States is the brightest appearing of all the stars,\u00a0<span id=\"term1047\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Sirius<\/span>, which has a distance of a little more than 8 light-years. It too is a binary system, composed of a faint white dwarf orbiting a bluish-white, main-sequence star. It is an interesting coincidence of numbers that light reaches us from the Sun in about 8 minutes and from the next brightest star in the sky in about 8 years.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Measuring Parallaxes in Space<\/h3>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721911521\">The measurements of stellar parallax were revolutionized by the launch of the spacecraft Hipparcos in 1989, which measured distances for thousands of stars out to about 300 light-years with an accuracy of 10 to 20% (see\u00a0Figure 19.8\u00a0and the feature on\u00a0Parallax and Space Astronomy). However, even 300 light-years are less than 1% the size of our Galaxy\u2019s main disk.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721962347\" class=\"has-noteref\">In December 2013, the successor to Hipparcos, named\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>, was launched by the European Space Agency.\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0is measuring the position and distances to almost one billion stars with an accuracy of a few millionths of an arcsecond.\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0distance limit extends well beyond Hipparcos, studying stars out to 30,000 light-years (100 times farther than Hipparcos, covering nearly 1\/3 of the galactic disk).\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0is also able to measure proper motions<sup id=\"footnote-ref2\" data-type=\"footnote-number\"><a role=\"doc-noteref\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#fs-id1165721817503\" data-type=\"footnote-link\">2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0for thousands of stars in the halo of the Milky Way\u2014something that can only be done for the brightest stars right now. At the end of\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0mission, we will not only have a three-dimensional map of a large fraction of our own\u00a0<span id=\"term1048\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Milky Way Galaxy<\/span>, but we will also have a strong link in the chain of cosmic distances that we are discussing in this chapter. Yet, to extend this chain beyond\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0reach and explore distances to nearby galaxies, we need some completely new techniques.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_HRDiag\" class=\"os-figure\">\r\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_HRDiag\">\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"671\"]<img id=\"13\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/63b9edc49ab27d3cac9aec3341e73d13e8542a4d\" alt=\"H\u2013R Diagram of Stars Measured by Gaia and Hipparcos. The x-axis of this graph is labeled \u201cSpectral Type\u201d and lists \u201cO\u201d, \u201cB\u201d, \u201cA\u201d, \u201cF\u201d, \u201cG\u201d, \u201cK\u201d, and \u201cM\u201d from left to right. The y-axis is labeled \u201cLuminosity (L_Sun)\u201d and ranges from 1\/100 to 10,000. The plot includes 16,631 stars which form a Y shape, with the tail at \u201cM\u201d on the x-axis and the two arms splitting roughly at \u201cG\u201d on the x-axis and \u201c1\u201d on the y-axis, with the left arm extending leftward up toward \u201c10,000\u201d on the y-axis and the right arm extending rightward up toward \u201c10,000\u201d.\" width=\"671\" height=\"765\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/> <strong>Figure\u00a019.8<\/strong>\u00a0H\u2013R Diagram of Stars Measured by\u00a0Gaia\u00a0and Hipparcos.\u00a0This plot includes 16,631 stars for which the parallaxes have an accuracy of 10% or better. The colors indicate the numbers of stars at each point of the diagram, with red corresponding to the largest number and blue to the lowest. Luminosity is plotted along the vertical axis, with luminosity increasing upward. An infrared color is plotted as a proxy for temperature, with temperature decreasing to the right. Most of the data points are distributed along the diagonal running from the top left corner (high luminosity, high temperature) to the bottom right (low temperature, low luminosity). These are main sequence stars. The large clump of data points above the main sequence on the right side of the diagram is composed of red giant stars. (credit: modification of work by the European Space Agency)[\/caption]<\/figure>\r\n<div class=\"os-caption-container\">\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--examples\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Making Connections<\/h3>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n<h4 id=\"14\" class=\"os-subtitle\" data-type=\"title\"><span class=\"os-subtitle-label\">Parallax and Space Astronomy<\/span><\/h4>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721930853\">One of the most difficult things about precisely measuring the tiny angles of\u00a0<span id=\"term1049\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">parallax<\/span>\u00a0shifts from Earth is that you have to observe the stars through our planet\u2019s atmosphere. As we saw in\u00a0Astronomical Instruments, the effect of the atmosphere is to spread out the points of starlight into fuzzy disks, making exact measurements of their positions more difficult. Astronomers had long dreamed of being able to measure parallaxes from space, and two orbiting observatories have now turned this dream into reality.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721959548\">The name of the Hipparcos satellite, launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency, is both an abbreviation for High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite and a tribute to Hipparchus, the pioneering Greek astronomer whose work we discussed in the\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy. The satellite was designed to make the most accurate parallax measurements in history, from 36,000 kilometers above Earth. However, its onboard rocket motor failed to fire, which meant it did not get the needed boost to reach the desired altitude. Hipparcos ended up spending its 4-year life in an elliptical orbit that varied from 500 to 36,000 kilometers high. In this orbit, the satellite plunged into Earth\u2019s radiation belts every 5 hours or so, which finally took its toll on the solar panels that provided energy to power the instruments.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722095511\">Nevertheless, the mission was successful, resulting in two catalogs. One gives positions of 120,000 stars to an accuracy of one-thousandth of an arcsecond\u2014about the diameter of a golf ball in New York as viewed from Europe. The second catalog contains information for more than a million stars, whose positions have been measured to thirty-thousandths of an arcsecond. We now have accurate parallax measurements of stars out to distances of about 300 light-years. (With ground-based telescopes, accurate measurements were feasible out to only about 60 light-years.)<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722233092\">In order to build on the success of Hipparcos, in 2013, the European Space Agency launched a new satellite called\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>. Because\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0carries larger telescopes than Hipparcos, it can observe fainter stars and measure their positions 200 times more accurately. The main goal of the Gaia mission is to make an accurate three-dimensional map of that portion of the Galaxy within about 30,000 light-years by observing 1 billion stars 70 times each, measuring their positions and hence their parallaxes as well as their brightnesses.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721305488\">For a long time, the measurement of parallaxes and accurate stellar positions was a backwater of astronomical research\u2014mainly because the accuracy of measurements did not improve much for about 100 years. However, the ability to make measurements from space has revolutionized this field of astronomy and will continue to provide a critical link in our chain of cosmic distances.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\"><header class=\"textbox__header\">\r\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Link to Learning<\/h3>\r\n<\/header>\r\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721315276\">The European Space Agency (ESA) maintains a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30GaiaMission\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Gaia mission website<\/a>\u00a0where you can learn more about the Gaia mission and to get the latest news on\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0observations.<\/p>\r\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721288651\">To learn more about Hipparcos, explore this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30Hipparcos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">European Space Agency webpage<\/a>\u00a0with an ESA vodcast\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Charting the Galaxy\u2014from Hipparcos to Gaia<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<h3 data-type=\"footnote-refs-title\">Footnotes<\/h3>\r\n<ul data-list-type=\"bulleted\" data-bullet-style=\"none\">\r\n \t<li id=\"fs-id1165721354204\" data-type=\"footnote-ref\"><a role=\"doc-backlink\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#footnote-ref1\">1<\/a> <span data-type=\"footnote-ref-content\">To have some basis for comparison, the dwarf planet Pluto orbits at an average distance of 40 AU from the Sun, and the dwarf planet Eris is currently roughly 96 AU from the Sun.<\/span><\/li>\r\n \t<li id=\"fs-id1165721817503\" data-type=\"footnote-ref\"><a role=\"doc-backlink\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#footnote-ref2\">2<\/a> <span data-type=\"footnote-ref-content\">Proper motion (as discussed in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/17-thinking-ahead\" data-page-slug=\"17-thinking-ahead\" data-page-uuid=\"9d28d6da-b855-4cfe-b629-54620023f99c\" data-page-fragment=\"\">Analyzing Starlight<\/a><em data-effect=\"italics\">,<\/em>\u00a0is the motion of a star across the sky (perpendicular to our line of sight.)<\/span><\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n<div class=\"textbox\">This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., &amp; Wolff, S. C. (2016). 19.2 Surveying the Stars In <i>Astronomy<\/i>. OpenStax. https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0<\/a><\/div>\r\n<div>Access the entire book for free at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction\">https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction<\/a><\/div>","rendered":"<div class=\"textbox textbox--learning-objectives\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Learning Objectives<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<p id=\"fs-id1168582970085\">By the end of this section, you will be able to:<\/p>\n<ul id=\"fs-id1165722201426\">\n<li>Understand the concept of triangulating distances to distant objects, including stars<\/li>\n<li>Explain why space-based satellites deliver more precise distances than ground-based methods<\/li>\n<li>Discuss astronomers\u2019 efforts to determine the distance of the stars closest to the Sun<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721890895\" class=\"has-noteref\">It is an enormous step to go from the planets to the stars. For example, our Voyager 1 probe, which was launched in 1977, has now traveled farther from Earth than any other spacecraft. As of 2021, Voyager 1 is 152 AU from the Sun.<sup id=\"footnote-ref1\" data-type=\"footnote-number\"><a role=\"doc-noteref\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#fs-id1165721354204\" data-type=\"footnote-link\">1<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0The nearest star, however, is hundreds of thousands of AU from Earth. Even so, we can, in principle, survey distances to the stars using the same technique that a civil engineer employs to survey the distance to an inaccessible mountain or tree\u2014the method of\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">triangulation<\/em>.<\/p>\n<section id=\"fs-id1165722138015\" data-depth=\"1\">\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Triangulation in Space<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721884539\">A practical example of triangulation is your own depth perception. As you are pleased to discover every morning when you look in the mirror, your two eyes are located some distance apart. You therefore view the world from two different vantage points, and it is this dual perspective that allows you to get a general sense of how far away objects are.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721911609\">To see what we mean, take a pen and hold it a few inches in front of your face. Look at it first with one eye (closing the other) and then switch eyes. Note how the pen seems to shift relative to objects across the room. Now hold the pen at arm\u2019s length: the shift is less. If you play with moving the pen for a while, you will notice that the farther away you hold it, the less it seems to shift. Your brain automatically performs such comparisons and gives you a pretty good sense of how far away things in your immediate neighborhood are.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721902601\">If your arms were made of rubber, you could stretch the pen far enough away from your eyes that the shift would become imperceptible. This is because our depth perception fails for objects more than a few tens of meters away. In order to see the shift of an object a city block or more from you, your eyes would need to be spread apart a lot farther.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721912109\">Let\u2019s see how surveyors take advantage of the same idea. Suppose you are trying to measure the distance to a tree across a deep river (Figure 19.4). You set up two observing stations some distance apart. That distance (line AB in\u00a0Figure 19.4) is called the\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">baseline<\/em>. Now the direction to the tree (C in the figure) in relation to the baseline is observed from each station. Note that C appears in different directions from the two stations. This apparent change in direction of the remote object due to a change in vantage point of the observer is called\u00a0<span id=\"term1026\" data-type=\"term\">parallax<\/span>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Triang\" class=\"os-figure\">\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Triang\">\n<figure style=\"width: 732px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"2\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/8e3b72d151fd64f3dc8d43cdecb0c8851dd19ab7\" alt=\"Illustration of the Triangulation Method. In this illustration a surveyor\u2019s transit is shown at two positions along a stream of water. Position \u201cA\u201d is at the center left of this image, and position \u201cB\u201d is just below the center of the illustration. They are separated by a distance labeled \u201cBaseline,\u201d with a black line drawn connecting the two. Both instruments are being used to measure the distance to a tree on the far side of the stream which is located at the upper right corner in the illustration. The tree is labeled \u201cC.\u201d Black lines are drawn from positions \u201cA\u201d and \u201cB\u201d to the tree at \u201cC\u201d to create the triangle ABC. A dashed line is drawn from the center of the baseline to point \u201cC.\u201d A curved arrow is drawn from the baseline to the line AC to represent the angle between the baseline and line AC.\" width=\"732\" height=\"475\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure\u00a019.4<\/strong>\u00a0Triangulation.\u00a0Triangulation allows us to measure distances to inaccessible objects. By getting the angle to a tree from two different vantage points, we can calculate the properties of the triangle they make and thus the distance to the tree.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721391551\">The parallax is also the angle that lines AC and BC make\u2014in mathematical terms, the angle subtended by the baseline. A knowledge of the angles at A and B and the length of the baseline, AB, allows the triangle ABC to be solved for any of its dimensions\u2014say, the distance AC or BC. The solution could be reached by constructing a scale drawing or by using trigonometry to make a numerical calculation. If the tree were farther away, the whole triangle would be longer and skinnier, and the parallax angle would be smaller. Thus, we have the general rule that the smaller the parallax, the more distant the object we are measuring must be.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722053186\">In practice, the kinds of baselines surveyors use for measuring distances on Earth are completely useless when we try to gauge distances in space. The farther away an astronomical object lies, the longer the baseline has to be to give us a reasonable chance of making a measurement. Unfortunately, nearly all astronomical objects are very far away. To measure their distances requires a very large baseline and highly precise angular measurements. The\u00a0<span id=\"term1027\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Moon<\/span>\u00a0is the only object near enough that its distance can be found fairly accurately with measurements made without a telescope. Ptolemy determined the distance to the Moon correctly to within a few percent. He used the turning Earth itself as a baseline, measuring the position of the Moon relative to the stars at two different times of night.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721293060\">With the aid of telescopes, later astronomers were able to measure the distances to the nearer planets and asteroids using Earth\u2019s diameter as a baseline. This is how the AU was first established. To reach for the stars, however, requires a much longer baseline for triangulation and extremely sensitive measurements. Such a baseline is provided by Earth\u2019s annual trip around the Sun.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section id=\"fs-id1165722257963\" data-depth=\"1\">\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Distances to Stars<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721903599\">As Earth travels from one side of its orbit to the other, it graciously provides us with a baseline of 2 AU, or about 300 million kilometers. Although this is a much bigger baseline than the diameter of Earth, the stars are\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">so far away<\/em>\u00a0that the resulting parallax shift is\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">still<\/em>\u00a0not visible to the naked eye\u2014not even for the closest stars.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722097273\">In the chapter on\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy, we discussed how this dilemma perplexed the ancient Greeks, some of whom had actually suggested that the Sun might be the center of the solar system, with Earth in motion around it. Aristotle and others argued, however, that Earth could not be revolving about the Sun. If it were, they said, we would surely observe the parallax of the nearer stars against the background of more distant objects as we viewed the sky from different parts of Earth\u2019s orbit (<a class=\"autogenerated-content\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">Figu<\/a>r<a class=\"autogenerated-content\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">e 19.6<\/a>). Tycho Brahe (1546\u20131601) advanced the same faulty argument nearly 2000 years later, when his careful measurements of stellar positions with the unaided eye revealed no such shift.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721960886\">These early observers did not realize how truly distant the stars were and how small the change in their positions therefore was, even with the entire orbit of Earth as a baseline. The problem was that they did not have tools to measure parallax shifts too small to be seen with the human eye. By the eighteenth century, when there was no longer serious doubt about Earth\u2019s revolution, it became clear that the stars must be extremely distant. Astronomers equipped with telescopes began to devise instruments capable of measuring the tiny shifts of nearby stars relative to the background of more distant (and thus unshifting) celestial objects.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721891569\">This was a significant technical challenge, since, even for the nearest stars, parallax angles are usually only a fraction of a second of arc. Recall that one second of arc (arcsec) is an angle of only 1\/3600 of a degree. A coin the size of a US quarter would appear to have a diameter of 1 arcsecond if you were viewing it from a distance of about 5 kilometers (3 miles). Think about how small an angle that is. No wonder it took astronomers a long time before they could measure such tiny shifts.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722132349\">The first successful detections of stellar parallax were in the year 1838, when Friedrich\u00a0<span id=\"term1028\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bessel<\/span>\u00a0in Germany (Figure 19.5), Thomas\u00a0<span id=\"term1029\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Henderson<\/span>, a Scottish astronomer working at the Cape of Good Hope, and Friedrich\u00a0<span id=\"term1030\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Struve<\/span>\u00a0in Russia independently measured the parallaxes of the stars 61 Cygni,\u00a0<span id=\"term1031\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, and\u00a0<span id=\"term1032\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Vega<\/span>, respectively. Even the closest star, Alpha Centauri, showed a total displacement of only about 1.5 arcseconds during the course of a year.<\/p>\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Bessel\" class=\"os-figure\">\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Bessel\">\n<figure style=\"width: 975px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"4\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/76787656cd204cae89f99aa4b2bd81bcff63dde5\" alt=\"Portraits of (a) Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel, (b) Thomas Henderson, and (c) Friedrich Struve.\" width=\"975\" height=\"430\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure\u00a019.5<\/strong>\u00a0Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (1784\u20131846), Thomas J. Henderson (1798\u20131844), and Friedrich Struve (1793\u20131864).\u00a0(a) Bessel made the first authenticated measurement of the distance to a star (61 Cygni) in 1838, a feat that had eluded many dedicated astronomers for almost a century. But two others, (b) Scottish astronomer Thomas J. Henderson and (c) Friedrich Struve, in Russia, were close on his heels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721344527\">Figure 19.6\u00a0shows how such measurements work. Seen from opposite sides of Earth\u2019s orbit, a nearby star shifts position when compared to a pattern of more distant stars. Astronomers actually define parallax to be\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">one-half<\/em>\u00a0the angle that a star shifts when seen from opposite sides of Earth\u2019s orbit (the angle labeled\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">P<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Figure 19.6). The reason for this definition is just that they prefer to deal with a baseline of 1 AU instead of 2 AU.<\/p>\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\" class=\"os-figure\">\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Parallax\">\n<figure style=\"width: 975px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"6\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/43673e1b873dee8c9117033e00f64c35664f5207\" alt=\"Illustration of Parallax. The Sun is drawn as a yellow disk in the left hand portion of the diagram and is labeled \u201cSun.\u201d A blue circle surrounds the Sun and is labeled \u201cEarth\u2019s orbit.\u201d The Earth is shown at two positions on the blue circle. Position \u201cA\u201d at the bottom of the circle and \u201cB\u201d at the top. Above and to the right of the center, a nearby star is drawn as an unlabeled red dot. In the upper right is an unlabeled group of five stars that are more distant than the red star. A white line is drawn from position A through the red dot to the uppermost stars in the group. A white line is drawn from position B through the red dot to the middle star in the group. A dashed line is drawn from the Sun to the red dot. The parallax angle, \u201cp,\u201d is drawn between the dashed line and line B. To illustrate the effect of parallax, two insets are included near points A and B. The inset at point B is labeled \u201cSky as seen from B,\u201d and shows the red dot near the middle star of the group of five stars that are illustrated in the upper right side of the figure. The inset at point A is labeled \u201cSky as seen from A,\u201d and shows the red dot near the uppermost stars of the group of five stars that are illustrated in the upper right side of the figure.\" width=\"975\" height=\"519\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure\u00a019.6<\/strong>\u00a0Parallax.\u00a0As Earth revolves around the Sun, the direction in which we see a nearby star varies with respect to distant stars. We define the\u00a0parallax\u00a0of the nearby star to be one half of the total change in direction, and we usually measure it in arcseconds.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Link to Learning<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<p>Use the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30parallaxmod\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Astronomical Parallax model<\/a>\u00a0to explore how the Earth\u2019s motion around the Sun causes nearby stars to appear to \u201cwobble\u201d back and forth compared to background stars. Click on the Orbit box, and use the view along the bottom to see the apparent motion of the nearby object.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Units of Stellar Distance<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721933252\">With a baseline of one AU, how far away would a star have to be to have a parallax of 1 arcsecond? The answer turns out to be 206,265 AU, or 3.26 light-years. This is equal to [latex]3.1 \\times {10^{13}}[\/latex]\u00a0kilometers (in other words, 31 trillion kilometers). We give this unit a special name, the\u00a0<span id=\"term1034\" data-type=\"term\">parsec<\/span>\u00a0(pc)\u2014derived from \u201cthe distance at which we have a\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">par<\/em>allax of one\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">sec<\/em>ond.\u201d The distance (<em data-effect=\"italics\">D<\/em>) of a star in parsecs is just the reciprocal of its parallax (<em data-effect=\"italics\">p<\/em>) in arcseconds; that is,<\/p>\n<p><math display=\"block\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/1998\/Math\/MathML\"><semantics><mrow><mrow><mi>D<\/mi><mo>=<\/mo><mfrac><mn>1<\/mn><mi>p<\/mi><\/mfrac><\/mrow><\/mrow><annotation-xml encoding=\"MathML-Content\"><mrow><mi>D<\/mi><mo>=<\/mo><mfrac><mn>1<\/mn><mi>p<\/mi><\/mfrac><\/mrow><\/annotation-xml><\/semantics><\/math><\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721953539\">Thus, a star with a parallax of 0.1 arcsecond would be found at a distance of 10 parsecs, and one with a parallax of 0.05 arcsecond would be 20 parsecs away.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722251126\">Back in the days when most of our distances came from parallax measurements, a parsec was a useful unit of distance, but it is not as intuitive as the light-year. One advantage of the light-year as a unit is that it emphasizes the fact that, as we look out into space, we are also looking back into time. The light that we see from a star 100 light-years away left that star 100 years ago. What we study is not the star as it is now, but rather as it was in the past. The light that reaches our telescopes today from distant galaxies left them before Earth even existed.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721941485\">In this text, we will use light-years as our unit of distance, but many astronomers still use parsecs when they write technical papers or talk with each other at meetings. To convert between the two distance units, just bear in mind: 1 parsec = 3.26 light-year, and 1 light-year = 0.31 parsec.<\/p>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--key-takeaways\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Astronomy Basics<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<h4 id=\"8\" class=\"os-subtitle\" data-type=\"title\"><span class=\"os-subtitle-label\">Naming Stars<\/span><\/h4>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721960993\">You may be wondering why stars have such a confusing assortment of names. Just look at the first three stars to have their parallaxes measured: 61 Cygni,\u00a0<span id=\"term1036\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, and\u00a0<span id=\"term1037\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Vega<\/span>. Each of these names comes from a different tradition of designating stars.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721819749\">The brightest stars have names that derive from the ancients. Some are from the Greek, such as\u00a0<span id=\"term1038\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Sirius<\/span>, which means \u201cthe scorched one\u201d\u2014a reference to its brilliance. A few are from Latin, but many of the best-known names are from Arabic because, as discussed in\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy, much of Greek and Roman astronomy was \u201crediscovered\u201d in Europe after the Dark Ages by means of Arabic translations. Vega, for example, means \u201cswooping Eagle,\u201d and\u00a0<span id=\"term1039\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Betelgeuse<\/span>\u00a0(pronounced \u201cBeetle-juice\u201d) means \u201cright hand of the central one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721954321\">In 1603, German astronomer Johann\u00a0<span id=\"term1040\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bayer<\/span>\u00a0(1572\u20131625) introduced a more systematic approach to naming stars. For each constellation, he assigned a Greek letter to the brightest stars, roughly in order of brightness. In the constellation of Orion, for example, Betelgeuse is the brightest star, so it got the first letter in the Greek alphabet\u2014alpha\u2014and is known as Alpha Orionis. (\u201cOrionis\u201d is the possessive form of Orion, so Alpha Orionis means \u201cthe first of Orion.\u201d) A star called Rigel, being the second brightest in that constellation, is called Beta Orionis (Figure 19.7). Since there are 24 letters in the Greek alphabet, this system allows the labeling of 24 stars in each constellation, but constellations have many more stars than that.<\/p>\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Orion\" class=\"os-figure\">\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_Orion\">\n<figure style=\"width: 917px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"10\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/4065f747a3a8dc03b963f85ad51ff409575cf260\" alt=\"Orion. Panel (a) is a photograph of the constellation Orion. Yellow Betelgeuse is at the upper left of this image, and blue Rigel is at the lower right. The three stars of Orion\u2019s belt are just below center. Panel (b) is a contemporary star-chart of Orion. The brightest stars are shown with their proper names and Greek letter designations. From top to bottom are, \u201cMeissa (lambda),\u201d \u201cBetelgeuse (alpha),\u201d \u201cBellatrix (gamma),\u201d \u201cMintaka (delta),\u201d \u201cAlnilam (epsilon),\u201d \u201cAlnitak (zeta),\u201d \u201cRigel (beta),\u201d and \u201cSaiph (kappa).\u201d Also shown, circled in red, are the nebulae \u201cM 78,\u201d \u201cM 42\u201d and \u201cM 43.\u201d\" width=\"917\" height=\"588\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure\u00a019.7<\/strong>\u00a0Objects in Orion.\u00a0(a) This image shows the brightest objects in or near the star pattern of Orion, the hunter (of Greek mythology), in the constellation of Orion. (b) Note the Greek letters of Bayer\u2019s system in this diagram of the Orion constellation. The objects denoted M42, M43, and M78 are not stars but nebulae\u2014clouds of gas and dust; these numbers come from a list of \u201cfuzzy objects\u201d made by Charles Messier in 1781. (credit a: modification of work by Matthew Spinelli; credit b: modification of work by ESO, IAU and\u00a0Sky &amp; Telescope)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722258520\">In 1725, the English Astronomer Royal John\u00a0<span id=\"term1041\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Flamsteed<\/span>\u00a0introduced yet another system, in which the brighter stars eventually got a number in each constellation in order of their location in the sky or, more precisely, their right ascension. (The system of sky coordinates that includes right ascension was discussed in\u00a0Earth, Moon, and Sky.) In this system,\u00a0<span id=\"term1042\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Betelgeuse<\/span>\u00a0is called 58 Orionis and 61 Cygni is the 61st star in the constellation of Cygnus, the swan.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721956192\">It gets worse. As astronomers began to understand more and more about stars, they drew up a series of specialized star catalogs, and fans of those catalogs began calling stars by their catalog numbers. If you look at\u00a0Appendix I\u2014our list of the nearest stars (many of which are much too faint to get an ancient name,\u00a0<span id=\"term1043\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Bayer letter<\/span>, or\u00a0<span id=\"term1044\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Flamsteed number<\/span>)\u2014you will see references to some of these catalogs. An example is a set of stars labeled with a BD number, for \u201cBonner Durchmusterung.\u201d This was a mammoth catalog of over 324,000 stars in a series of zones in the sky, organized at the Bonn Observatory in the 1850s and 1860s. Keep in mind that this catalog was made before photography or computers came into use, so the position of each star had to be measured (at least twice) by eye, a daunting undertaking.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722092610\">There is also a completely different system for keeping track of stars whose luminosity varies, and another for stars that brighten explosively at unpredictable times. Astronomers have gotten used to the many different star-naming systems, but students often find them bewildering and wish astronomers would settle on one. Don\u2019t hold your breath: in astronomy, as in many fields of human thought, tradition holds a powerful attraction. Still, with high-speed computer databases to aid human memory, names may become less and less necessary. Today\u2019s astronomers often refer to stars by their precise locations in the sky rather than by their names or various catalog numbers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">The Nearest Stars<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721856897\">No known star (other than the Sun) is within 1 light-year or even 1 parsec of Earth. The stellar neighbors nearest the Sun are three stars in the constellation of Centaurus. To the unaided eye, the brightest of these three stars is\u00a0<span id=\"term1045\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Alpha Centauri<\/span>, which is only 30<sup>\u25cb<\/sup>\u00a0from the south celestial pole and hence not visible from the mainland United States. Alpha Centauri itself is a binary star\u2014two stars in mutual revolution\u2014too close together to be distinguished without a telescope. These two stars are 4.4 light-years from us. Nearby is a third faint star, known as\u00a0<span id=\"term1046\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Proxima Centauri<\/span>. Proxima, with a distance of 4.3 light-years, is slightly closer to us than the other two stars. If Proxima Centauri is part of a triple star system with the binary Alpha Centauri, as seems likely, then its orbital period may be longer than 500,000 years.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721974521\">Proxima Centauri is an example of the most common type of star, and our most common type of stellar neighbor (as we saw in Stars: A Celestial Census.) Low-mass red M dwarfs make up about 70% of all stars and dominate the census of stars within 10 parsecs (33 light-years) of the Sun. For example, a recent survey of the solar neighborhood counted 357 stars and brown dwarfs within 10 parsecs, and 248 of these are red dwarfs. Yet, if you wanted to see an M dwarf with your naked eye, you would be out of luck. These stars only produce a fraction of the Sun\u2019s light, and nearly all of them require a telescope to be detected.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721971860\">The nearest star visible without a telescope from most of the United States is the brightest appearing of all the stars,\u00a0<span id=\"term1047\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Sirius<\/span>, which has a distance of a little more than 8 light-years. It too is a binary system, composed of a faint white dwarf orbiting a bluish-white, main-sequence star. It is an interesting coincidence of numbers that light reaches us from the Sun in about 8 minutes and from the next brightest star in the sky in about 8 years.<\/p>\n<h3 data-type=\"title\">Measuring Parallaxes in Space<\/h3>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721911521\">The measurements of stellar parallax were revolutionized by the launch of the spacecraft Hipparcos in 1989, which measured distances for thousands of stars out to about 300 light-years with an accuracy of 10 to 20% (see\u00a0Figure 19.8\u00a0and the feature on\u00a0Parallax and Space Astronomy). However, even 300 light-years are less than 1% the size of our Galaxy\u2019s main disk.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721962347\" class=\"has-noteref\">In December 2013, the successor to Hipparcos, named\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>, was launched by the European Space Agency.\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0is measuring the position and distances to almost one billion stars with an accuracy of a few millionths of an arcsecond.\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0distance limit extends well beyond Hipparcos, studying stars out to 30,000 light-years (100 times farther than Hipparcos, covering nearly 1\/3 of the galactic disk).\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0is also able to measure proper motions<sup id=\"footnote-ref2\" data-type=\"footnote-number\"><a role=\"doc-noteref\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#fs-id1165721817503\" data-type=\"footnote-link\">2<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0for thousands of stars in the halo of the Milky Way\u2014something that can only be done for the brightest stars right now. At the end of\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0mission, we will not only have a three-dimensional map of a large fraction of our own\u00a0<span id=\"term1048\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">Milky Way Galaxy<\/span>, but we will also have a strong link in the chain of cosmic distances that we are discussing in this chapter. Yet, to extend this chain beyond\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0reach and explore distances to nearby galaxies, we need some completely new techniques.<\/p>\n<div id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_HRDiag\" class=\"os-figure\">\n<figure data-id=\"OSC_Astro_19_02_HRDiag\">\n<figure style=\"width: 671px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"13\" src=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/apps\/archive\/20220118.185250\/resources\/63b9edc49ab27d3cac9aec3341e73d13e8542a4d\" alt=\"H\u2013R Diagram of Stars Measured by Gaia and Hipparcos. The x-axis of this graph is labeled \u201cSpectral Type\u201d and lists \u201cO\u201d, \u201cB\u201d, \u201cA\u201d, \u201cF\u201d, \u201cG\u201d, \u201cK\u201d, and \u201cM\u201d from left to right. The y-axis is labeled \u201cLuminosity (L_Sun)\u201d and ranges from 1\/100 to 10,000. The plot includes 16,631 stars which form a Y shape, with the tail at \u201cM\u201d on the x-axis and the two arms splitting roughly at \u201cG\u201d on the x-axis and \u201c1\u201d on the y-axis, with the left arm extending leftward up toward \u201c10,000\u201d on the y-axis and the right arm extending rightward up toward \u201c10,000\u201d.\" width=\"671\" height=\"765\" data-media-type=\"image\/jpeg\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong>Figure\u00a019.8<\/strong>\u00a0H\u2013R Diagram of Stars Measured by\u00a0Gaia\u00a0and Hipparcos.\u00a0This plot includes 16,631 stars for which the parallaxes have an accuracy of 10% or better. The colors indicate the numbers of stars at each point of the diagram, with red corresponding to the largest number and blue to the lowest. Luminosity is plotted along the vertical axis, with luminosity increasing upward. An infrared color is plotted as a proxy for temperature, with temperature decreasing to the right. Most of the data points are distributed along the diagonal running from the top left corner (high luminosity, high temperature) to the bottom right (low temperature, low luminosity). These are main sequence stars. The large clump of data points above the main sequence on the right side of the diagram is composed of red giant stars. (credit: modification of work by the European Space Agency)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n<div class=\"os-caption-container\">\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--examples\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Making Connections<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<h4 id=\"14\" class=\"os-subtitle\" data-type=\"title\"><span class=\"os-subtitle-label\">Parallax and Space Astronomy<\/span><\/h4>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721930853\">One of the most difficult things about precisely measuring the tiny angles of\u00a0<span id=\"term1049\" class=\"no-emphasis\" data-type=\"term\">parallax<\/span>\u00a0shifts from Earth is that you have to observe the stars through our planet\u2019s atmosphere. As we saw in\u00a0Astronomical Instruments, the effect of the atmosphere is to spread out the points of starlight into fuzzy disks, making exact measurements of their positions more difficult. Astronomers had long dreamed of being able to measure parallaxes from space, and two orbiting observatories have now turned this dream into reality.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721959548\">The name of the Hipparcos satellite, launched in 1989 by the European Space Agency, is both an abbreviation for High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite and a tribute to Hipparchus, the pioneering Greek astronomer whose work we discussed in the\u00a0Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy. The satellite was designed to make the most accurate parallax measurements in history, from 36,000 kilometers above Earth. However, its onboard rocket motor failed to fire, which meant it did not get the needed boost to reach the desired altitude. Hipparcos ended up spending its 4-year life in an elliptical orbit that varied from 500 to 36,000 kilometers high. In this orbit, the satellite plunged into Earth\u2019s radiation belts every 5 hours or so, which finally took its toll on the solar panels that provided energy to power the instruments.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722095511\">Nevertheless, the mission was successful, resulting in two catalogs. One gives positions of 120,000 stars to an accuracy of one-thousandth of an arcsecond\u2014about the diameter of a golf ball in New York as viewed from Europe. The second catalog contains information for more than a million stars, whose positions have been measured to thirty-thousandths of an arcsecond. We now have accurate parallax measurements of stars out to distances of about 300 light-years. (With ground-based telescopes, accurate measurements were feasible out to only about 60 light-years.)<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165722233092\">In order to build on the success of Hipparcos, in 2013, the European Space Agency launched a new satellite called\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>. Because\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0carries larger telescopes than Hipparcos, it can observe fainter stars and measure their positions 200 times more accurately. The main goal of the Gaia mission is to make an accurate three-dimensional map of that portion of the Galaxy within about 30,000 light-years by observing 1 billion stars 70 times each, measuring their positions and hence their parallaxes as well as their brightnesses.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721305488\">For a long time, the measurement of parallaxes and accurate stellar positions was a backwater of astronomical research\u2014mainly because the accuracy of measurements did not improve much for about 100 years. However, the ability to make measurements from space has revolutionized this field of astronomy and will continue to provide a critical link in our chain of cosmic distances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"textbox textbox--exercises\">\n<header class=\"textbox__header\">\n<h3 class=\"textbox__title\">Link to Learning<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"textbox__content\">\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721315276\">The European Space Agency (ESA) maintains a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30GaiaMission\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">Gaia mission website<\/a>\u00a0where you can learn more about the Gaia mission and to get the latest news on\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Gaia<\/em>\u00a0observations.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fs-id1165721288651\">To learn more about Hipparcos, explore this\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/l\/30Hipparcos\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow noreferrer\">European Space Agency webpage<\/a>\u00a0with an ESA vodcast\u00a0<em data-effect=\"italics\">Charting the Galaxy\u2014from Hipparcos to Gaia<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h3 data-type=\"footnote-refs-title\">Footnotes<\/h3>\n<ul data-list-type=\"bulleted\" data-bullet-style=\"none\">\n<li id=\"fs-id1165721354204\" data-type=\"footnote-ref\"><a role=\"doc-backlink\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#footnote-ref1\">1<\/a> <span data-type=\"footnote-ref-content\">To have some basis for comparison, the dwarf planet Pluto orbits at an average distance of 40 AU from the Sun, and the dwarf planet Eris is currently roughly 96 AU from the Sun.<\/span><\/li>\n<li id=\"fs-id1165721817503\" data-type=\"footnote-ref\"><a role=\"doc-backlink\" href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars#footnote-ref2\">2<\/a> <span data-type=\"footnote-ref-content\">Proper motion (as discussed in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/17-thinking-ahead\" data-page-slug=\"17-thinking-ahead\" data-page-uuid=\"9d28d6da-b855-4cfe-b629-54620023f99c\" data-page-fragment=\"\">Analyzing Starlight<\/a><em data-effect=\"italics\">,<\/em>\u00a0is the motion of a star across the sky (perpendicular to our line of sight.)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<div class=\"textbox\">This book was adapted from the following: Fraknoi, A., Morrison, D., &amp; Wolff, S. C. (2016). 19.2 Surveying the Stars In <i>Astronomy<\/i>. OpenStax. https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/19-2-surveying-the-stars under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0<\/a><\/div>\n<div>Access the entire book for free at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction\">https:\/\/openstax.org\/books\/astronomy\/pages\/1-introduction<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"menu_order":11,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-595","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":591,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/595\/revisions\/1052"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/591"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/595\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=595"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/astronomy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}