Sentences with phrase «distant background stars»

Because Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our sun (distance, 4.2 light - years), its angular motion across the sky is relatively fast compared to much more distant background stars.

Microlensing occurs when a foreground star passes close to our line of sight to a more distant background star.

Scientists can take advantage of the warping effect by measuring the light of distant stars, looking for a brightening that might be caused by a massive object, such as a planet, that passes between a telescope and a distant background star.

Not exact matches

Along with the familiar cosmic microwave background — the afterglow of the big bang — the distant universe is suffused with an infrared background, thought to come from galaxies and stars too faint and far away to see.

So a number of observational projects have taken a different tack, trying to identify small KBOs by monitoring background stars for sudden dips in brightness that might result from a distant object crossing the line of sight between the star and Earth.

Background Astronomers can figure out what distant stars are made of (in other words, their atomic composition) by seeing what type of light the star produces.

Microlensing works on a much smaller scale: Individual stars or planets focus the light of more distant stars, making the background star appear to grow brighter and then dim again.

The only accurate approach to measure the tangential speed of M31 is to observe proper motion of M31's stars against a background of distant galaxies.

The thin, glowing streak slicing across this image cuts a lonely figure, with only a few foreground stars and galaxies in the distant background for company.

The image, which shows gas, dust and stars spread across the sky in a disorderly and irregular jumble, also reveals several other, far more distant galaxies that appear as fuzzy shapes in the background.