But seriously, one clever trick (among many) which astronomers use to determine the distance of an astronomical object is to make observations 6 months apart, when Earth is at opposite sides of its orbit around the Sun. The apparent change in position of the star relative to farther objects in the background (parallax) indicates how much the view was affected by the change in Earth's position. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_parallax #astronomy #science