Actually, Galileo did try to measure the distance to the stars with parallax--the technique was known but not practiceable at the time. He failed, though, the parallax being too small for him to measure.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

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