Past exam of the relativity course of the University of Cambridge 2022 Section A 1 Solution 2026-10-18
Use angular size under a collinear relativistic boost. For a small distant source, the two angular diameters have ratio , where is the relative rapidity. Thus , and the relative velocity satisfiesThe speed is therefore . The observers are momentarily coincident, so this is relativistic aberration, rather than a difference in their distance from the planet. The observer moving faster towards the planet measures the smaller angular diameter under the source-direction aberration convention.