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Explanation of the cosmic distance ladder

Measuring distance across the Universe is fundamental to astronomy.
Without knowledge of distance it’s virtually impossible to study the physical
properties of celestial objects. Understanding distance allows astronomers to
explain where the Universe came from, and where it might be heading.

Scaling the ladder Earth’s atmosphere makes these small angles very
difficult to measure with ground-based telescopes.
Astronomers use various methods to measure relative For this reason the Hipparcos satellite was launched
distances in the Universe, depending upon the object in 1989. Above Earths’ atmosphere, Hipparcos
being observed. Collectively these techniques are can measure angles as small as 0.3 x 10 -6 degree
known as the cosmic distance ladder. (1 milliarcsecond). Distances to many more stars can
It’s called a ladder for good reason — each rung or be measured, with about 100 000 stars now in the
measurement technique relies upon the previous step Hipparcos catalogue.
for calibration. The greater the distance measured, Indirect measurements
the more steps astronomers have used to get there.
The Milky Way galaxy is about 100 000 light years
across, so only a small proportion of stars can be
Step one: stellar parallax measured using parallax. For most astronomical
Stellar parallax is the only ‘direct’ method astronomers objects astronomers rely on indirect methods
have to measure distance outside the Solar System. of measurement that are based on observable
It relies on principles of trigonometry. properties of stars. Using knowledge about
processes of nuclear fusion in stars, the nature of
As the Earth orbits the Sun, nearby stars appear to light and observations of light spectra, astronomers
shift slightly in position relative to more distant categorise stars with similar properties. This may
stars. Distance to a nearby star can be calculated by provide clues as to a star’s absolute brightness and
measuring the amount of this shift (called parallax help establish ‘standard candles’.
angle) between two points of the Earth’s orbit that
are a known distance apart.
Step two: standard candle
The parallax angle is small — even the Sun’s nearest
neighbour, Proxima Centauri, has a parallax angle Stars in the night sky vary in brightness. This is not
of only 0.0002° (770 milliarcseconds) — but it allows just because they vary in the amount of light that they
astronomers to measure distance to stars up to 10 000 emit, but also because they vary in distance from us.
light years away. For more remote stars the parallax ‘Luminosity’ is the term used to describe the amount
angle is too small to accurately measure distance. of light a star emits. The term used to describe its
brightness is ‘magnitude’.
For historic reasons, dating
Earth’s position back to the ancient Greeks,
in January the brightest stars have the
smallest magnitude. That is,
magnitude and brightness
are inversely related.
parallax angle
Apparent magnitude refers
to the brightness of a star
as seen from Earth, whilst
nearby star absolute magnitude refers
Earth’s orbit to the brightness of a star
viewed from a standard
distance of 10 parsecs (or 32.6
light years).
Earth’s position
distant stars
in July

Figure 1: stellar parallax

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 Figure 2: Relationship between absolute
magnitude and luminosity – the Sun has a
luminosity of one.

The brightest objects in the night sky have negative The relationship shows that the longer the period
magnitude, for example Venus has an apparent of a Cepheid, the brighter the star, so astronomers
magnitude of -4.6, which is bright enough to see in can determine a relationship between absolute
daylight. The brightest star, Sirius, has an apparent magnitude and period. As can be seen in figure 3,
magnitude of -1.5. there are now known to be two types of Cepheid
(population I and II) with slightly different period-
It’s easy to measure an object’s apparent magnitude,
magnitude relationships.
but determining its absolute magnitude is a lot
harder. There’s not much chance of getting 10 parsecs A Danish astronomer, Ejnar Herzsprung, took Leavitt’s
away from a star and holding up a light meter! work a step further. Hertzsprung used properties of
Nevertheless, there are some objects for which the Cepheids’ light curves and statistical parallax to
astronomers do know absolute brightness, and these arrive at an estimated distance to the Magellanic
are called ‘standard candles’. clouds. This measurement was further refined by
American astronomer Harlow Shapley who observed
Type 1a supernovae and Cepheid variable stars both
Cepheids in 86 globular clusters. He then used the
have known absolute magnitude, and are used in
apparent magnitude of non-variable stars located in
astronomy to measure distance. This technique is
these globular clusters to estimate distances to other
based on a comparison of apparent and absolute
stars with the same properties — building each time
magnitude. If absolute magnitude is known then the
upon previous knowledge.
apparent magnitude can be used to work out distance
from Earth.
Cepheid variables
Cepheid variables are pulsating
variable stars that brighten
-8
and dim at regular intervals.
In the early 1900s, Henrietta
-7
Leavitt established that there is
a simple relationship between
-6
the period of a star’s pulsation
(the time taken to complete one
absolute magnitude

-5
cycle, bright to dim then bright
again) and its average apparent -4
magnitude. The relationship
showed that the longer the -3
period of a Cepheid, the brighter
the star. -2

Leavitt compared a group of

-1
Cepheids from the Magellanic
Clouds. By assuming that all the 0
Cepheids were roughly the same 1 2 4 6 8 10 20 40 60 80 100

distance from us, she was able to period (days)

infer that differences in apparent

magnitude were related to Figure 3: This graph shows the relationship between absolute magnitude and period
differences in absolute magnitude. for Cepheid variables. It is based on data from the David Dunlop Observatory,
Fernie JD, Beattie B, Evans NR and Seager S (1995), International Bulletin of
Variable Stars 4148.

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To measure distance to an unknown Cepheid, certain point in the accretion process; once this limit
observations are first made to determine its period. is reached the star will explode. The limit is governed
From this, an absolute magnitude can be determined, by principles of nuclear physics.
using the graph in figure 3. Its distance from Earth
Importantly, this event is predictable and does not
can then be calculated by comparing absolute and
change. Every type 1a supernovae occurs after the
apparent magnitude, even when it lies more than
exact same series of events. Type 1a supernovae emit
10 000 light years from Earth.
the same amount of light, and produce
the same light curve after explosion.
This ‘consistent luminosity’ is very useful
for astronomy as it means that type
1a supernovae have known absolute
magnitude at various stages of the event.
The shape of the light curve is the same
for all type 1a supernovae. The amount
of light produced after the explosion
(the peak) is the same, and the decrease
in brightness follows a constant curve.
Astronomers determine whether they
have located a type 1a supernova by
examining its light curve. From this they
measure the supernova’s maximum
apparent magnitude. Because the
Figure 4: 
Cepheid type stars in the spiral galaxy NGC 300. European maximum absolute magnitude achieved
Southern Observatory, CC-BY-3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/
File:ESO-Cepheid_stars_NGC_300.jpg
by all type 1a supernova is known,
distance to the supernova can be
determined.
Polaris, the North Star, is the nearest Cepheid to Earth.
Astronomers use type 1a supernovae to determine
It lies about 430 light years away. Using ground-based
distance to galaxies where they occur. Distances of up
telescopes this technique can measure distances of up
to an incredible 1 000 000 000 light years have been
to 13 000 000 light years. The Hubble Space Telescope
measured.
has made the most distant Cepheid measurement so
far, of around 100 000 000 light years.

Step three: type 1a supernovae

At greater distances than these, astronomers are
unable to observe individual stars, so Cepheid
variables are no longer useful. Instead astronomers
look to some of the brightest events in the Universe
— supernovae.
Supernovae are extremely luminous stellar explosions.
There are various types of supernovae, but only
type 1A supernovae are used to establish distance.
Type 1a supernovae result when the white dwarf
companion in a binary star system accretes matter to
the point where it becomes unstable and explodes.
Astronomers know that this explosion occurs at a Figure 6: supernova 1994D, a type 1A supernova on the outskirts of
galaxy NGC 426. High-Z Supernova Search Team/HST/NASA

-20
relative brightness

-19

-18

-17
-20 0 20 40 60
days after peak brightness
supernova explosion
Figure 5: light curve for a typical type 1a supernova

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 Redshift is expressed by a factor Z that measures the
relative difference between emitted and observed
wavelengths from an object:

λobserved − λemitted
Z=
λemitted
If an object is moving relative to us at a velocity
substantially less than the speed of light then the
relationship between Z and the object’s recessional
velocity v is given by:

v
Z≈ , where c is the speed of light (3 x 108 m s-1).
c
Figure 8: Absorption lines in light from distant galaxies are redshifted The Doppler effect reveals the recessional velocity of
when compared with light from the Sun. Image by Harold T
Stokes, Brigham Young University. a celestial object (how fast it is moving towards or
away from us), but it does not reveal anything about
cosmic distance. For example, the Andromeda galaxy,
2.2 million light years from Earth, shows a small
Step four: redshift blueshift of 0.001 because it is moving towards our
To measure still further out into the Universe, galaxy at 0.001 x 3 x 10 8 = 3 x 105 m s-1 or 300 km s-1.
astronomers use the expanding Universe theory, Cosmological redshift
which was developed by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
Scientists now believe that redshift observed for
The light spectra of celestial objects have characteristic very distant objects is only partly due to the speed
lines. Hubble observed a shift in these lines toward of recession of the object from the Earth. Most
the red end of the spectrum. The amount of redshift of it is caused by expansion of the Universe and
varies between different galaxies. consequent ‘stretching’ of space. As space itself is
Hubble inferred redshift was caused by relative motion stretched, light travelling across it is also stretched,
of celestial objects (the Doppler effect). Objects causing wavelengths to increase and the light to be
travelling toward an observer display a shortening in redshifted. Astronomers use the observed shift in
the wavelength of emitted light, resulting in a shift wavelength of light from distant celestial objects to
toward the blue end of the spectrum (blueshift). calculate how far away objects are. The further away
Objects moving away from an observer display a an object is, the longer it has taken for light to reach
lengthening of wavelength or a shift toward the red us, and the more that light has been stretched out
end of the spectrum (redshift). due to expansion of the Universe.

Based on his observation of ‘redshift’, Hubble Redshifts of less than 0.01 are considered to be
established that almost all galaxies are moving away primarily due to the Doppler effect. Quasars were the
from us, and each other. Hubble also observed that first celestial bodies observed to have anomalously
the further away the object, the greater the amount high redshifts (z > 0.1). GRB 090423, observed in April
of redshift. This is expressed in Hubble’s law: 2009, had a z=8.2. This makes it not only the most
distant object detected (1.3 x 1010 light years away
The velocity with which galaxies recede from from us), but also the oldest as the Universe was just
us (recessional velocity) is proportional to their 630 million years old when light was emitted from it.
distance from us.

Figure 9: Sample of distant galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team,
www.hubblesite.org/gallery/album/the_universe/hubble_ultra_deep_field/pr2004007i/

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