Why can't we determine the distances to galaxies using the geometric method of trigonometric parallax (triangulation), as we do for stars?
2006-11-18 19:40:27 · 4 answers · asked by rascal 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Because Galxies are constantly in motion and moving threw the cosmic void as if right now the nearist galaxie to our galaxie the andormeda is moving at 400000 mph towards the mliky way at about 100 million years they will colide in a so caleld ," Death Dance " and merge into a super galaxie the most common unit of mesuarment for space is the A.U. or the astronomical unit and since the sun wich is a star is locked in place and is not moving unlike galaxies and there is a massive black hole at the center of the mily way atracting andromeda and it is coming towards us the stars stay fixerd unlike galaxies so it would be impractical because we would never have accurate data since the variables and mesaurments are allways changing for galaxies but do to stars they are not that is why. hope that was helpful.
2006-11-18 19:52:04 · answer #1 · answered by scenekid13542 2 · 0⤊ 3⤋
Because galaxies are too far away to have measurable parallax over the baseline of Earth's orbit. Parallax works for stars only out to about 1500 light years. Beyond that, distances are measured with various standard candles. Distances to remote galaxies are estimated using red shift, with the help of an occasional supernova for calibration.
2006-11-18 19:57:00 · answer #2 · answered by injanier 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Trigonometric Parallax
2016-11-12 05:27:14 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
simple answer is that distance between galaxies can as much as the expanse of the glaxy it self, so which point shall be taken as refernce?
2006-11-18 19:59:47 · answer #4 · answered by faraj 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋