Hey. Tried searching for this but was unsuccessful.
Now, to preface this, I know absolutely nothing about science. I’ve watched a few documentaries, but that’s as far as my knowledge goes.
I have been wondering about something for a while but whenever I try looking it up, the answers are far too complex for me to understand.
So my question revolves around stars. First, how is distance to stars measured? How do we know that it is reasonably accurate, and not a situation where said star was smaller and closer or bigger and farther away than previously thought?
Second, how is the brightness measured? I’ve heard stuff like “this and that star shines 100x brighter than our sun”. How can that be reasonably accurately measured over the vast distances we’re talking about in space?
Third, how can we measure or calculate mass of a star, given the vast distances?
I suspect those 3 questions might be somewhat linked, so I thought I’d ask all 3 in the same thread.
Now keep in mind, I do not understand calculus or math above algebra, so if anything like that is needed to understand, please dumb it down as much as you reasonably can.
Thankful for any replies helping me wrap my head around these concepts. Thanks in advace!
In: 9
For distance there is the [Cosmic distance ladder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_distance_ladder). For relativity nearby stars we can measure how their apparent position changes slightly as we move from side to side, orbiting the sun every year. That’s basic trigonometry so we’re very confident about the principle, but the tiny angles mean accuracy drops off with distance. But some types of stars have a consistent brightness. We can measure this with nearby stars and then extrapolate to more distant stars, though with more uncertainty. Yet more techniques can be used for even more distant objects.
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