Measuring Large Distances
When it comes to measuring distances to other stars, the orbit of Earth around the sun provides the baseline for these calculations.
Every six months, the planet changes its position with respect to the surrounding universe by 186 million miles (300 million kilometers). Since we are making this motion together with Earth, we can (theoretically) observe its effect as tiny circles that stars perform in the sky every year. Due to the vast distances to even the nearest stars, these circles are barely noticeable so detecting and measuring them is extremely difficult.
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