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Parsec unit breakdown
Parsec unit breakdown






The parsec is defined as being equal to the length of the adjacent leg (opposite leg being 1 AU) of an extremely elongated imaginary right triangle in space. Please help improve it by merging similar text or removing repeated statements. This section may contain content that is repetitive or redundant of text elsewhere in the article. This corresponds to the small-angle definition of the parsec found in many astronomical references. In August 2015, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) passed Resolution B2 which, as part of the definition of a standardized absolute and apparent bolometric magnitude scale, mentioned an existing explicit definition of the parsec as exactly 648 000 / π au, or approximately 30.856 775 814 913 673 ×10 15 metres (based on the IAU 2012 exact SI definition of the astronomical unit). Although parsecs are used for the shorter distances within the Milky Way, multiples of parsecs are required for the larger scales in the universe, including kiloparsecs (kpc) for the more distant objects within and around the Milky Way, megaparsecs (Mpc) for mid-distance galaxies, and gigaparsecs (Gpc) for many quasars and the most distant galaxies. Partly for this reason, it is the unit preferred in astronomy and astrophysics, though the light-year remains prominent in popular science texts and common usage. The word parsec is a portmanteau of "parallax of one second" and was coined by the British astronomer Herbert Hall Turner in 1913 to make calculations of astronomical distances from only raw observational data easy for astronomers. Most stars visible to the naked eye are within a few hundred parsecs of the Sun, with the most distant at a few thousand. The nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 1.3 parsecs (4.2 light-years) from the Sun. This corresponds to 648 000 / π astronomical units, i.e.

parsec unit breakdown

The parsec unit is obtained by the use of parallax and trigonometry, and is defined as the distance at which 1 au subtends an angle of one arcsecond ( 1 / 3600 of a degree). 30.9 trillion kilometres (19.2 trillion miles). The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to 3.26 light-years or 206,265 astronomical units (au), i.e. A parsec is the distance from the Sun to an astronomical object that has a parallax angle of one arcsecond (not to scale)








Parsec unit breakdown