Why do we want to know the distance of stars?

Question

Ok, so I did some research on the parallax method on the internet, and got to know the basic ideas of what it is. But now I have a question, what is the point of wanting to know the distance of other stars from us? Does that have any impact on our understanding of the universe besides the how far it is?

Many thanks.

Answer 1

Well, we simply want to know pur position (where are we) and about our surroundings. Imagine to have no education (livbing about 50.000 years ago) and all you know about is what plants to eat, what animals mean danger to you and the cave you live in. But some day, you discover other caves "nearby: Wouldn't you want to go there ? And wouldn't you need to know how far they are away to have estimate whether you need food (or hunting weapons) on the way? Besides curiosity is a natural part of every intelligent species ... we often want to know things just out of curiosity.

Answer 2

Man like cats are by Nature are very curious.There is a limitation how far stars can be observed.They were designed to be at a large distance and because they are very massive ,they appear as a point in space.Their use has been in the past mainly for navigation and determining times and seasons.
The Universe in that sense is very simple=Numerous stars and a trillion galaxy;
. In other word its an astronomical Universe.
We dont really know how far the edge of the Universe ends.
HOwever we are bound to Conclude that what is Beyond is something different =called Heavens.

Answer 3

Suppose we knew nothing about stars. That all we know is that at night there are some peculiar lights at the sky. Suddenly we find out that these lights are at enormous distances from us. How bright they must be to be seen from us despite they are distant! Could they be something like our own sun? Could there be planets around these suns? Could there be life? And so on...