This provides a basis for the cosmic distance ladder.

For some galaxies, it is possible to estimate distances via the cosmic distance ladder.

Zeta Geminorum is thus an important calibrator for establishing the cosmic distance ladder.

The distance to the Pleiades can be used as an important first step to calibrate the cosmic distance ladder.

See the article cosmic distance ladder.

Because the mass allows the luminosity to be directly determined, the star serves as an important calibrator for the cosmic distance ladder.

The methods used to determine the distances to very distant cosmic objects are described in the "Cosmic distance ladder"

Stellar parallax remains the standard for calibrating other measurement methods (see Cosmic distance ladder).

The distances established by these three independent methods agree, thereby making the Hyades an important rung on the cosmic distance ladder.

For a discussion of astronomical methods for determining cosmological distances, see the article Cosmic distance ladder.

Cosmic distance ladder Alternative developments:

The cosmic distance ladder (also known as the extragalactic distance scale) is the way astronomers measure the distance of objects in space.

Astrometry is an important step in the cosmic distance ladder because it establishes parallax distance estimates for stars in the Milky Way.

Other methods can then extend the distance scale from open clusters to galaxies and clusters of galaxies, and a cosmic distance ladder can be constructed.

The measurement of stellar parallax of nearby stars provides a fundamental baseline in the cosmic distance ladder that is used to measure the scale of the universe.

But the dispersion of the data-points about this relationship, is quite large: about 0.5 mag, rendering the effect too imprecise to significantly improve the cosmic distance ladder.

Unlike other means of determining distances of the order of several billion light-years, the determination is completely self-contained and does not rely on the cosmic distance ladder.

The use of metrological traceability to connect different regimes of measurement is similar to the idea behind the cosmic distance ladder for different ranges of astronomical length.

The water masers in M106 enabled the first case of a direct measurement of the distance to a galaxy and thereby providing an independent anchor for the cosmic distance ladder.

Astrometric parallax measurements form part of the cosmic distance ladder, and can also be measured by other Space telescopes such as Hubble (HST) or ground-based telescopes to varying degrees of precision.

Because the more distant steps of the cosmic distance ladder depend upon the nearer ones, the more distant steps include the effects of errors in the nearer steps, both systematic and statistical ones.

The observational result of Hubble's Law, the proportional relationship between distance and the speed with which a galaxy is moving away from us (usually referred to as redshift) is a product of the cosmic distance ladder.

To this end, a standard candle measurement for Cepheid variables was discovered by Henrietta Swan Leavitt in 1908 which would provide Edwin Hubble with the rung on the cosmic distance ladder he would need to determine the distance to spiral nebula.

At the opposite end of the cosmic distance ladder, observations made with Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra have been combined in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey to yield a multi-wavelength picture of galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe.

Yet some authors argue that the controversy over the distance to the Pleiades discussed below is a red herring, since the cosmic distance ladder can (presently) rely on a suite of other nearby clusters where consensus exists regarding the distances as established by Hipparcos and independent means (e.g., the Hyades, Coma Berenices cluster, etc.).