Watch: An Animated Short On How We Measure The Universe | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

Ever wonder how we possibly know how far away stars and galaxies are from the earth? Obviously it involves telescopes and measurements, right? But beyond that, how does our observed data actually translate into light years? How do we know what we know?

This animation by Royal Observatory Greenwich explains the fundamental tools astronomers use to decode data from dots of light–principles like parallax and redshift. And don’t worry, nothing requires a science degree to unders… (View original article)