How did Hipparchus measure the distance to the Moon? “Hipparchus used observations from a total eclipse of the Sun to estimate the distance of the Moon from the Earth. The eclipse he used was total at the Hellespont (the narrow strait...
When was the distance to the Moon calculated? “Aristarchus around 270 BC derived the Moon’s distance from the duration of a lunar eclipse (Hipparchus later found an independent method). It was commonly accepted in those days that the Earth was a...
Is the Moon’s orbital distance changing? “Answer(s): Laser ranging measurements of the change in the distance from the Earth to the Moon tell us that the Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of about 3.78 cm per...
Who found distance to Sun? “In 1653, astronomer Christiaan Huygens calculated the distance from Earth to the sun.” How big did Aristarchus think the Sun was? “He found the Moon’s diameter to be between 0.32 and 0.40 times the diameter of...
How do they calculate the distance to the Sun? “By measuring the time taken for the radar echo to come back, the distance can be calculated, since radio waves travel at the speed of light. Once this Earth-Venus distance is known,...
How did we find out the distance to the Moon? “This distance is routinely measured using LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) stations which bounce laser pulses off of the retroreflecting mirrors placed on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts.” Who discovered...
How can we find the distance of moon by parallax? “How far away is the Moon? One way to find out is by using parallax: observe the Moon from two points on the Earth’s surface, and measure the shift in its...
Is Australia actually wider than the moon? “Although the Moon is about as wide as Australia, it is actually much bigger when you think in terms of surface area. It turns out the surface of the Moon is much larger than...
Is the Moon hot or cold? “Temperatures on the moon are very hot in the daytime, about 100 degrees C. At night, the lunar surface gets very cold, as cold as minus 173 degrees C. This wide variation is because Earth’s...
Is the Sun 110 times the diameter of Earth? “The Sun is 864,400 miles (1,391,000 kilometers) across. This is about 109 times the diameter of Earth. The Sun weighs about 333,000 times as much as Earth. It is so large that...