What is the formula for the distance between two points in outer space?
–How do we measure how far away distant bodies in outer space are? G.O.A.T.” is correct about triangulation, but we use extremely large triangles to do this. Imagine the earth in Spring, we’re a certain distance from the sun on one side of it. We take a measurement of the angle to the object…then we wait until Fall, where the earth is now a similar distance from the sun on the other side of it…and we take another angular measurement of the object. Using our known distance between the two points in space (on opposite sides of the sun = The diameter of our Earth’s orbit) and the 2 known angles, we can calculate the distance to the object being measured by triangulation. ADDED: The angles are not distorted because we can measure the distances from the Earth to the Sun with great accuracy…and when we measure distances to say, Orion’s belt…we’re talking about measuring light years of distance, so accuracy down to the meter, or even to the kilometer isn’t really necessary…it’s nic
