19 Aquarii 19 Aquarii 19 Aquarii is a star in the constellation of Aquarius. With an apparent magnitude of about 5.7, the star is barely visible to the naked eye (see Bortle scale). Parallax estimates made by the Hipparcos spacecraft put it at a distance of about 300 light years (92 parsecs) away from the Earth. 19 Aquarii has a spectral type of A8V, meaning it is an A-type main-sequence star. These types of stars are bluish-white colored, and have effective temperatures between 7100 and 11500 K. It rotates fairly fast, as its projected rotational velocity is about 155 km/s, so it
Rømer's determination of the speed of light Rømer's determination of the speed of light Rømer's determination of the speed of light was the demonstration in 1676 that light has a finite speed, and so does not travel instantaneously. The discovery is usually attributed to Danish astronomer Ole Rømer (1644–1710), who was working at the Royal Observatory in Paris at the time. By timing the eclipses of the Jupiter moon Io, Rømer estimated that light would take about 22 minutes to travel a distance equal to the diameter of Earth's orbit around the Sun. This would give light a velocity of about 220,000 kilometres per second, about 26%