Space Astrometry For Parallax
In 1989, the satellite Hipparcos was launched primarily for obtaining parallaxes and proper motions of nearby stars, increasing the reach of the method tenfold. Even so, Hipparcos is only able to measure parallax angles for stars up to about 1,600 light-years away, a little more than one percent of the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy. The European Space Agency's Gaia mission, due to launch in 2013, will be able to measure parallax angles to an accuracy of 10 microarcseconds, thus mapping nearby stars (and potentially planets) up to a distance of tens of thousands of light-years from earth.
Read more about this topic: Stellar Parallax
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“Time in his little cinema of the heart
Giving a première to Hate and Pain;
And Space urbanely keeping us apart.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)