How would you use the parallax formula to determine the distances to a star (in parsecs)? The parallax angle is 0.002790.

Question

1706 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2016-11-29T16:52:51

Assuming that the parallax angle unit is 1 degree, the distance of the star is 10.04 parsec.

I assume that the unit for angle is 1 degree.

By definition of parsec, for parallax angle 1sec, the distance is 1

parsec.

So, for #0.002790^o= 0.002790 X 3600 sec=10.044 sec, the

distance is 10.044 parsec

$= 10.04 X 206265 A U$ $= 10.04 X 206265 AU$

$= \frac{10.04 X 206265}{62900}$ $= (10.04 X 206265)/62900$ light years

$= 32.92$ $=32.92$ light years, nearly..