How would you use the parallax formula to determine the distances to a star (in parsecs)? The parallax angle is 0.0012516.
1 Answer
Oct 11, 2016
799
Explanation:
The angle has to be in second ( '' ) unit.
For 1'' parallax angle, the distance is 1 parsec.
For other values in seconds, the distance = 1/(angle in seconds)
parsecs. This is for approximations, for a few significant digits (sd)
only.
Here, the distance is 1 /.0012516 = 798.98 parsecs, nearly.
Had the unit of the angle been taken as degree,
the distance ( 0222 parsec ) will be too small to be the distance
of a star.
The distance of the nearest star Proxima Centauri is 1.293 parsecs.
