Solar parallax

The basic method used for determining solar parallax is the determination of trigonometric parallax. In accordance with the law of gravitation, the relative distances of the planets from the Sun are known, and the distance of the Sun from Earth can be taken as the unit of length. The measurement of the distance or parallax of any planet will determine the value of this unit. The smaller the distance of the planet from Earth, the larger will be the parallactic displacements to be measured, with a corresponding increase in accuracy of the determined parallax. The most favourable conditions are therefore provided by the observation, near the time of opposition, of planets approaching close to Earth. The determination can be based either on simultaneous or nearly simultaneous observations from two different places on Earth’s surface, or on observations made after sunset and before sunrise at the same place, when the displacement of the place of observation produced by the rotation of Earth provides the base line for the measurements.

The first reasonably accurate determination of the Sun’s parallax was made in 1672 from observations of Mars at Cayenne, French Guiana, and Paris, from which a value of 9.5″ was obtained.

Methods depending on velocity of light are also employed to ascertain solar parallax. The value of the velocity of light has been determined with very high precision and may be utilized in several different ways. A direct method is the converse of the procedure of Ole Rømer in the discovery of the velocity of light; i.e., to use the light equation, or time taken by the light to reach us at the varying distances of Jupiter, but great accuracy is hardly obtainable in this way. A second method is by means of the constant of aberration, which gives the ratio of the velocity of Earth in its orbit to the velocity of light. As aberration produces an annual term of amplitude 20.496″ in the positions of all stars, its amount has been determined in numerous ways. Observations made at Greenwich in the years 1911 to 1936 gave the value 20.489″ ± 0.003″ leading to the value 8.797″ ± 0.013″ for solar parallax. This method is not free from the suspicion of systematic error.

The velocities of stars toward or away from Earth are determined from spectroscopic observations. By choosing times when the orbital motion of Earth is carrying it toward or from a star, astronomers are able to determine mathematically the velocity of the Earth in its orbit. In this way the solar parallax was found from observations at the Cape of Good Hope to be 8.802″ ± 0.004″.

Radar measures of the distance from Earth to Venus have provided the best determination of the solar parallax. By measuring the flight time of a radar pulse to Venus, the distance between the two planets can be obtained, allowing the determination of the unit distance between Earth and the Sun.

The present value for the astronomical unit is 149,597,871 km (92,955,807 miles). The principal limitations of using radar to measure the astronomical unit are the dependence on knowledge of the planetary orbits, the uncertainty in the value of the velocity of light, and the possibility of electromagnetic effects in the Earth–Venus plasma delaying the radar pulse.

Gravitational methods are still another means of determining solar parallax. In lunar theory there is a term of period one month known as the parallactic inequality. The coefficient of the term contains the ratio of the parallaxes of the Sun and Moon as a factor. The coefficient’s large size makes it of value.

The ratio of the combined mass of Earth and the Moon to that of the Sun may be determined from the disturbing action of Earth and Moon on the elliptic motion of the planets. The ratio of the Moon’s mass to that of Earth is 1/81.30, and thus the ratio of Earth’s mass to that of the Sun is found. In a manner similar to that described above for the Moon’s parallax, the solar parallax is then derived.

Stellar parallax

The stars are too distant for any difference of position to be perceptible from two places on Earth’s surface, but, as Earth revolves at 149,600,000 km from the Sun, stars are seen from widely different viewpoints during the year. The effect on their positions is called annual parallax, defined as the difference in position of a star as seen from Earth and from the Sun. Its amount and direction vary with the time of year, and its maximum is a/r, where a is the radius of the Earth’s orbit and r the distance of the star. The quantity is very small and never reaches 1/206,265 in radians, or 1″ in sexagesimal measure.

Using a heliometer designed by German physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer, German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was the first to measure stellar parallax in 1838. Choosing 61 Cygni, a star barely visible to the naked eye and known to possess a relatively high velocity in the plane of the sky, Bessel showed in 1838 that, after correcting for velocity, the star apparently moved in an ellipse every year. This back-and-forth motion was the annual parallax. Astronomers had known for centuries that such an effect must occur, but Bessel was the first to demonstrate it accurately. Bessel’s parallax of about one-third of a second of arc corresponds to a distance of about 10.3 light-years from Earth to 61 Cygni, though Bessel did not express it this way. (The nearest star known is Alpha Centauri, 4.3 light-years away, with a parallax of about 0.75″.)

Direct measurement

The introduction of the photographic method by American astronomer Frank Schlesinger in 1903 considerably improved the accuracy of stellar parallaxes. In practice a few photographs are taken when the star is on the meridian shortly after sunset at one period (epoch) of the year and shortly before sunrise six months later. Since the star’s positions also change because of its motion across the sky (proper motion), a minimum of three such sets of observations is necessary for obtaining the parallax. From approximately 25 photographs taken over five epochs, the parallax of a star usually is determined with an accuracy of about ± 0.010″ (probable error), even though the diameter of the photographic disk of the star is rarely less than 2.0″.

The unit in which stellar distances are expressed by astronomers, the parsec, is the distance of a star whose parallax is 1″. This is equal to 206,265 times Earth’s distance from the Sun, or approximately 30,000,000,000,000 km. When p is measured in seconds of arc and the distance d in parsecs, the simple relation d = 1/p holds. One parsec is equal to 3.26 light-years.

The star with the largest known parallax, 0.75″, is Alpha Centauri. Seventy-four separate stars are known within a distance of five parsecs from the Sun. These stars include the bright stars Alpha Centauri, Sirius, and Procyon, but the majority are faint telescopic objects.