How is Leavitt's law used to measure distances to stars?

Oganesson · Jun 30, 2016

And how we use it to calculate distances from stars to the earth.Thank you

newjerseyrunner · Jun 30, 2016

She discovered a relationship between the periods of a cepheid variable and their brightness by assuming that all of them in the Large Magelenic cloud were approximately the same distance from us. This allows us to determine the absolute amount of brightness of any cepheid in the universe just by watching it's duration. By knowing how bright the object actually is, and how bright we observe it to be, the distance is easily determinable.

Oganesson · Jul 1, 2016

newjerseyrunner said:

She discovered a relationship between the periods of a cepheid variable and their brightness by assuming that all of them in the Large Magelenic cloud were approximately the same distance from us. This allows us to determine the absolute amount of brightness of any cepheid in the universe just by watching it's duration. By knowing how bright the object actually is, and how bright we observe it to be, the distance is easily determinable.

Thank You.

How is Leavitt's law used to measure distances to stars?

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