Astronomers have recently been able to calculate the distance to one of the earth’s neighboring galaxies. The distance has been calculated more accurately than ever before and has also allowed scientists to measure the expansion of the universe.
The Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy has been used as the basis to estimate remote objects in outer space and the ultimate size of the Universe. However, by using this technique, any mistake in the initial measurement is magnified over longer distances, which means that the estimates of the position of faraway galaxies are very uncertain.
Now researchers have managed to make a more accurate measurement of the space between Earth and the LMC, which is 163,000 light years away, with the help of the observations of a rare type of double star. Professor Wolfgang, one of the study leaders said, “We have solved this problem by demonstrably having a result accurate to two per cent.”
Astronomers had monitored how rare pairs of stars, which are known as the eclipsing binaries orbit one another, they were also able to figure out their size and mass. Later, the information was combined with the measurements of their brightness and color and this allowed researchers to determine their distance from the earth to a high level of accuracy.
