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When you’re out at night with an astronomer, you’ll hear statements like ‘that planet is 500 million miles away’, or ‘that star is 1800 light years from Earth.’ Yet all the stars and planets look just like points of light stuck to the inside of a big dome. How can astronomers measure their distances, and how do they cope with the enormou snumbers involved?

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This event was on Fri, 17 Nov 1995

Speaker_HeatherCouper2.jpg

Professor Heather Couper

Professor of Astronomy

Heather Couper was the Gresham Professor of Astronomy between 1993 and 1996.

After studying Astrophysics at Oxford University, Professor Couper ran the Greenwich Planetarium, and...

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