It isn't easy to measure the distance of stars. We can't travel to them, counting the miles as we go, nor can we simply say that brighter stars are closer and dimmer ones more distant. Instead, we ...

Let’s try a demonstration that we all enjoyed in elementary school. Close one eye, hold out your thumb at arm’s length, and align it with an object on the other side of the room. Without moving your ...

Humans can estimate distances to sound sources better when they move and exploit auditory motion parallax. The ability to estimate distances to sound sources accurately can be crucial for survival. A ...

The cosmic distance ladder employs a series of methods to measure increasingly vast astronomical distances, with each technique building upon the previous one for verification. Parallax, using stellar ...

In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel won the race to measure the first distance to a star other than our Sun via the trigonometric parallax—setting the first scale of the universe. Astronomers from the U ...

Recently the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has completed the largest map of the universe thus far. The map focuses on the positions of quasars. These objects are powered by supermassive black holes ...

For the first time, astronomers have directly measured the distance to a spot clear across the galaxy. The established but challenging technique promises a new way to map the structure of the Milky ...

Astronomers from the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO), in collaboration with others from the REsearch Consortium On Nearby Stars (RECONS), have determined new distances to a group of faint young stars ...

Distance measured out to the far side of our Milky Way means that radio astronomers now can work on producing an accurate map of the full extent of our galaxy's structure for the first time.

(Nanowerk News) In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel won the race to measure the first distance to a star other than our Sun via the trigonometric parallax – setting the first scale of the Universe.