In 1838, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel won the race to measure the first distance to a star other than our Sun via the trigonometric parallax—setting the first scale of the universe.
![](https://scx1.b-cdn.net/csz/news/tmb/2020/resolvinglon.jpg)
Source:
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-long-standing-mysteries-parallaxes-astronomy.html