Stellar distances are primarily determined by the inverse-square law of light, which mathematically links a star's apparent brightness (m), intrinsic brightness (absolute magnitude, M), and distance ...

Streaks caused by satellites are visible in a image taken with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the foreground. Credit: RubinObs/NSF/DOE/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/W. O ...

A glance at the night sky above Earth shows that some stars are much brighter than others. However, the brightness of a star depends on its composition and how far it is from the planet. Astronomers ...

Cepheid variable stars exhibit regular pulsations whose period directly correlates with their intrinsic brightness (absolute luminosity). The Leavitt law establishes this relationship between ...

One of the trickiest problems in astronomy is the measure of distance. In theory, distance should be simple to work out. If you know the intrinsic brightness of an object, a simple measure of its ...

Since May 24, 2019, SpaceX has been launching satellites into orbit 60 at a time to bolster the ranks of its Starlink megaconstellation – a fleet of networked sats flying in formation that, once ...

Elongation is the angle, in degrees, between the Sun and the planet as seen from here on the Earth. Superior planets (those that lie further from the Sun than us: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, ...

Humans have been utterly fascinated with the night sky and the millions of stars sprinkled throughout the huge expanse. Out of the numerous stars, some are brighter than others, and closer to the ...

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) deliver emitted light in response to current being made to flow through them, but then you already knew that, right?? If we define that the light output of an LED is ...