Solar parallax

Have you ever tried looking at a small object that is far away from you? When you try to get a closer look, you might notice that it seems to move a little bit when you switch your perspective. This movement is called parallax.

Now, let's talk about the sun, which is billions (that's a really big number!) of times bigger than any small object we're used to seeing. Scientists know that the distance between the Earth and the sun is around 93 million miles (wow!), but they wanted to measure this distance more accurately.

They figured out that they could use the parallax effect to help them measure this distance! Just like how you move your head to get a better look at a small object, scientists use telescopes on Earth to observe the sun's position in the sky at different times of the year. By measuring the difference in the position of the sun, they can work out the angle between the Earth and the Sun, which helps them calculate the distance.

This method is called solar parallax, and it has helped scientists measure the distance to other stars as well. So, even though the sun might seem very far away, we can use some clever observations and math to measure it more accurately.