How to Calculate the Distance to the Star Sirius

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, so you could guess it might be one of the closest. Only two other visible stars are closer: bernard starr and alphacentaury. Newton used an idea he got from a scottish mathematician named james gregory to calculate its distance. He concluded that sirius is one million astronomical units away, or one million times further away than the sun,. In reality, sirius is only about half that distance.