What distance forms the baseline for measuring stellar parallax?
Answer
Earth's orbit around the Sun (two Astronomical Units)
The two sighting points used for triangulation are on opposite sides of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, creating a baseline distance of roughly two Astronomical Units.
#Videos
How Scientists Measure The Distance To Stars and Galaxies
Related Questions
What prevents astronomers from determining stellar distance merely by measuring apparent brightness?What tiered approach do scientists use to tackle the vast scale of cosmic distances?What purely geometric method is relied upon for measuring the distances to the closest stars?What distance forms the baseline for measuring stellar parallax?In the parallax calculation $d = 1/p$, how is the distance ($d$) related to the parallax angle ($p$)?What limits the effective range of the stellar parallax method?When parallax fails, what characteristic of a star do astronomers use to determine distance via standard candles?What crucial relationship did Henrietta Swan Leavitt discover regarding Cepheid variables?What specific event leads to a Type Ia supernova explosion used as a standard candle?What causes the phenomenon known as cosmological redshift for light from very distant galaxies?Hubble's Law ($v = H_0 d$) states that recessional velocity ($v$) is proportional to what other quantity?If the measurement of parallax for the nearest stars was slightly off, what would be the ultimate consequence for measuring distant galaxies?