How do scientists figure out how far a light came from as they say we are still getting light from billion of?

Question

How do scientists figure out how far a light came from. As they say we are still getting light from billion of years away from big bang time. Is that light like the light from the stars we see at night?

Answer 1

parallax effect

Answer 2

There are a number of techniques used to calibrate distances, depending on range. Some kinds of supernovae have a known intrinsic brightness, so you can tell how far away they are from apparent brightness. At great distances, galaxies recede from each other approximately at a rate proportional to their separation, so you can tell their distance from Doppler shift. This correlation was discovered by plotting the distance of the above supernovae vs. recessional velocity from the Doppler shift of identifiable spectral absorption lines. Close to home (~100 Ly), the direction the light comes from changes when earth moves from one side of the sun to another. You can triangulate the distance from such "parallax".

Answer 3

According to Ask Science Theatre at Michigan State University: A light-year is defined as the distance light travels during one year. Light from the sun travels with a speed of about 300,000,000 meters per second. By multiplying the speed of light by the number of seconds in one year, we find that one light-year is equal to 9.5 x 1015 (that's 9,5000,000,000,000,000!) meters. To give you an idea of how large a distance this is, the average separation of the Earth and the Sun is about 1.5 x 1011 meters. This means that, in order to travel a distance of one light-year, one would have to make 32,000 round trips between the Sun and the Earth! Use of the light-year allows astronomers to write, for example, the distance between the Earth and the nearest stars beyond the Sun as 4 light-years, instead of 38,000,000,000,000,000 meters. The light-year is just one of a number of specialized units which have been defined by scientists in order to make measurements and calculations involving very large (and very small) distances more convenient.

In our Milky Way Galaxy there are 235 planetary bodies, of which 169 moons are in our Solar System. These 169 moons are the well documented satellite moons of the 9 planets. Jupiter alone has 63 moons. The challenge lies in how we can build atmospheres on them to support human life and all other living things. Also, we have to weed out the ones that are inhospitable.

Venus=0, Earth=1, Mars=2, Jupiter=63, Saturn=60, Uranus=27, Neptune=13, Pluto=3

The trick is to categorize them into planets/moons that either spin on their axis, or don't. Then, increase the surface gravity by inserting a Superconducting Magnet into the core. The magnet would range from 2 Tesla to 15 Tesla, depending on the amount of iron/nickel that is present in the core.

Finally, to introduce atmospheric gases into the man made electromagnetic bubble.

This website gives the exact location of each of the moons of Jupiter: http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/sate...

and this site tells us how to make an ATMOSPHERE on all the moons: http://www.atmospheres.5u.com/index.html...

Answer 4

Exactly, sa you're looking into our solar system, deeper, and deeper, you start to realize how big it is, that all these stars emmiting a spectrum of light, tells you that at one point the distance relative to the star tells the age of that star, depending o the light it's emiting , blue red or purple. And scientist determine the distance by using the speed of light which is 300,000km/s with the Astronomical unit (150,000,000 km)formula.

Answer 5

parallax effect... the principle is similar to elementary trigonometry, that is triangulation. the apparent motion of the earth creates a deviation in the position of the stars. once you got the the angle of change in position of the star and the change of distance of the earth, you can compute for the distance of the star. the measurements however needs very high precision instruments.