Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359, two of the closest stars to our Solar System, were measured on April 22/23 from Earth and New Horizons simultaneously. The closest stars appear to shift relative to the more distant background stars: a geometric phenomenon known as parallax with enormous importance for astronomy. (NASA/JOHNS HOPKINS APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE/LAS CUMBRES OBSERVATORY/SIDING SPRING OBSERVATORY/UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE/HARVARD AND SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR ASTROPHYSICS/MT. LEMMON OBSERVATORY; EDITS BY E. SIEGEL)

NASA’s New Horizons Sees A Different Night Sky From 4 Billion Miles Away

The view from beyond Pluto is far enough from Earth that we can see the stars shift.

NASA’s New Horizons, humanity’s first spacecraft to encounter Pluto, is more than 4.3 billion miles (7 billion km) from Earth.

A computer simulation of the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, based on the full suite of data obtained by the spacecraft and reconstructed based on its trajectory past this distant world. (NASA)

At these incredible distances, .

By viewing stars from two locations separated by more than 7 billion kilometers (4.3 billion miles), humanity has now been able to measure the largest parallax of a star of all-time. The New Horizons spacecraft, most famous for imaging Pluto and its moons up close, has set yet another record. (PETE MARENFELD, NSF’S NATIONAL OPTICAL-INFRARED ASTRONOMY RESEARCH LABORATORY)

The same effect occurs when you alternate which eye views your thumb: parallax.

An application of parallax, where a foreground (finger) object appears to shift relative to the background (trees) as you move from your left eye to your right. The larger the spacing between your eyes is (your baseline) the larger the apparent shift (and the associated parallax angle) will be. (E. SIEGEL, 2010)

With enough distance between your proverbial “eyes,” the closest stars to Earth appear to move.