Distance
Hunting For Asteroids
Aimed at pupils aged 11-14 this workshop encourages pupils to ‘blink’ between several images, taken by the Liverpool Telescope, in a bid to find asteroids. The activity can then be extended to them using the LT Image software functionality to calculate the speed of the asteroids, or simply a discussion on what asteroids are and how we track them.
You can download the individual files needed for this activity below, or this zip file (53mb) contains them all.
Standard Candles
calculate relative distances.
Credit: Wikimedia (user Bangin)
Parallax Measurements
Credit: NSO
Parallax is one of the most important distance measurement methods used by astronomers. It can only be used for nearby stars, but it is very accurate.
Reasons to Measure Distances
Credit: Mouser, belt highlighted by NSO
Measuring distances in astronomy is difficult but crucial.
Measuring Distances
Credit: NSO
Knowing the distance to objects in space is important. It is also very hard - you can't just use a ruler!
Astronomers over hundreds of years have worked out new ways to measure the distance to stars and galaxies.
The ways we measure distance fall into 2 types:
Light-Year
Credit: Mandy Bailey and Wikimedia
It is the distance that light travels in one year.
