Would it be easier to measure a stars parallax from Pluto? Why?

Answer 1

Actually yes, it would. And the reason is simply that you'd have a much larger baseline (the diameter of Plutos orbit as opposed to the diameter of Earths orbit) from which to measure.

Doug

Answer 2

Well, yes and no.

Yes, because Pluto is in a larger orbit, and no because it takes so long to get from one side of the orbit to the other.

Parallax is a movement of a near object relative to a distant object caused by the motion of the observer. Hold your finger up and close one eye, note where your finger appears in relation to the background, then close that eye and open the other one. The difference in position of your eyes means that your finger appears in a different position against the background seen from each eye. It is this that allows us to see in 3D, by the way.

Stellar parallax is observed as the Earth moves around the Sun. If you make one observation in January and another in July, the Earth has completed half an orbit between your two observations, so it has moved 300 million km. It's like your finger and one eye example above, but with the Earth's two positions representing your two eyes, a nearby star representing your finger, and the more distant stars representing the background.

On Pluto the orbit is much much larger. Because of this, the distance between opposite sides of the orbit is much larger, so a small parallax measurement made from Earth will appear bigger from Pluto. However, since Pluto takes hundreds of years to complete one orbit you'd have to wait a long time to make your second observation.

Answer 3

You would get more accurate and easier to record results. The distance would mean far less room for error.
However, its not easier because we cant get there and the odd orbit of pluto could cause problems. Its not on the same plane as the rest of us and the planets have to be lined up right to get a speed boost around at least 2 of the gas giants.
Pluto is so difficult to get to we might not go back for another 2 centuries.
If we could put a satelite telescope into orbit around every planet then it would solve a lot of problems and give continuous coverage of the skies.

Answer 4

The parallax shift would be greater because of the orbit being greater. However, you would have to wait several life times to get from one side of the orbit to the other. The orbit of Pluto is 248 years long.

Answer 5

It wouldn't. Pluto moves slower than the Earth, therefor the measurement would take much longer.

The best way to measure parallax would be to send multiple spacecraft onto fast escape trajectories from the solar system.

That's mighty expensive, though and will probably not happen anytime soon.

Answer 6

Yes.
The Earth's orbit is about 186 million miles across, and pluto's is about 4 billion. So, the apparent locations of stars would shift much more significantly as we moved around Pluto's orbit as compared to Earth's.

Answer 7

Yes. The baseline for the parallex triangle would be about 80 AU (versus only 2 AU from the earth). The accuracy of the measurements for existing stars would go up over an order of magnitude, while the max. distance for measuring more distant stars would also go up (compared with the same accuracy as seen from earth).

The only bad thing is: it would take about 250 years for Pluto to make it around to the far side of its orbit to make the 2nd measurement.

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Answer 8

The amount of parallax would be greater but whether it's easier also depends on how you expect to get to pluto.