Why was Tycho unwilling to accept that the stars are too far away for him to be able to detect their parallaxes?
A)He thought he could measure the angular diameters of stars
B)He assumed the Earth was stationary
C)He knew Saturn was at the same distance as the stars
D)Trick question,he could,in fact,measure stellar parallaxes

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Tycho believed that he could measure the angular diameters of stars and therefore, he should be able to determine their parallaxes. However, due to the limited technology of his time, he was unable to accurately measure these quantities.

Answer: B
 Tycho assumed that the Earth was stationary, which meant that he did not consider the possibility of observing stellar parallaxes. It was only after Galileo discovered the principle of parallax that astronomers began to realize the importance of taking the Earth's motion around the Sun into account.

Answer: D
 This is a trick question, as Tycho was actually able to measure some stellar parallaxes during his lifetime. Although his measurements were not very accurate, he was able to observe parallax shifts from several stars and use them to estimate the distances to those stars. His observations provided important data for later astronomers to refine our understanding of parallax and the distances to stars.

Why Was Tycho Unwilling to Accept That the Stars Are