Distances to the Stars?

ctf • June 28, 2012
Dr. J,
How is distance to stars and other planets determined?  I know it is measured in light-years, but how is that determined?  If radar or sonar or anything similar were used, it would take longer than we would live to bounce back to us.  Could those stars and planets actually be closer than we thought? God bless you, Dennis in OK
The stars are surely thousands of light years away, and the other galaxies even billions away. There’s no threat to Biblical authority on that, whether on age of the earth or Big Bang Theory or whatever.  Only the closest stars can be accurately measured in their distances from Earth.  We do this by “trigonometric parallax.”  We take a look at where in the sky a star appears from the vantage point of Earth … then we wait half a year until Earth is on the other side of the Sun (a difference of nearly 200 million miles) and then we take a look at it again.  The more different its location seems, compared to the relatively fixed apparent location of the more distant stars … then the closer it is to us.

However, parallax can only use a gigantic triangle to measure the distance of stars no farther than 4.5 light years away.  Most are much further than that.  The rest are figured using “stellar evolution” theory to predict the size and brightness of a star … then to look at how much smaller and dimmer it looks from here … to gauge how far away it must be.  True, this is flawed.  Seyfert-variable stars are used to gauge the distance of even stars in other galaxies.  These and super-nova explosions are more reliable.  But the distances really are as great as the textbooks say.  The “main sequence” on the H-R Diagram, however (all put together from Big Bang Theory and Stellar Evolution Theory), is a non-proven yet taught-as-fact concept.  I hope this helps.  Say “hi” from all of us at Creation Truth Foundation to all of the brothers and sisters on the campus and at the church!

Sincerely yours, Dr Jackson

Washington the Soldier
by Jacques Auguste Regnier, 1834
By Ryan Cox May 7, 2026
Washington the Soldier by Jacques Auguste Regnier, 1834
Picture of the Moon
By Matt Miles May 6, 2026
Artemis - the Greek goddess of wild animals, the hunt, vegetation, chastity and childbirth. 1 While the Greek goddess may not be openly worshiped anymore, her name has now been irrevocably linked to the lesser light, just as her mythological twin brother Apollo’s was in the last century. Even so, it was not without Providence showing Who is really present in the affairs of men. NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has been focused on having a prolonged presence in space with the work of the International Space Station (ISS), so until recently lunar exploration took a backseat. The Artemis missions of NASA have changed that. They began with the first launch in 2022 when an unmanned spacecraft orbited the Moon and returned successfully for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. The plan for the Artemis program is to establish an ongoing manned presence on the Moon. In upcoming missions astronauts will return to the surface, marking another generation of Moon exploration. As we press forward, may we never forget the sacrifice of many lives throughout our ongoing space program, and may we remember it is only possible by the ordered design and engineered forces at work in creation by the Lord God our Creator. Many of you may have watched, as I did, as four brave astronauts were launched from the clutches of Earth’s gravity on April 1, 2026. It was hard to describe how proud I was as an American on that day. This country, founded on God-ordained rights and privileges, was the first and only country to place His image bearers on the surface of the lesser light years ago, and we are headed back again. We are literally doing what the Lord asked of us from the Genesis 1:28 mandate in studying His creation. As much as I know that not all who work for NASA have this worldview, there are several that do, praise the Lord! On Artemis II launch day, one of the four astronauts on board was our brother in Christ - Victor Glover, mission pilot.
Show More