PhilDernerJr
2008-01-12, 11:53 PM
First, I'd just like to say I never did drugs, and this is not something that I'm thinking about under the influence of pot or anything else.
I saw an article on on the news that got me thinking about the galaxy and its size. I started doing some calculations, and I could be wrong here, so please correct me, as I'm looking to learn.
I will use Orion's Belt for this example. Many of us can look up in the sky and see the three stars that make up Orion's Belt on a clear night. On average, these stars are about 1,500 light years away.
A light year is that distance that light moves in a year. Light moves 5,878,625,373,183 miles in a year. So, if Orion's Belt is 1,500 light years away, that's a distance of 8,817,938,059,774,500 miles. That's almost 9 quadrillion, by the way.
Now, similar to the way sound moves, we cannot see something until the light has traveled from the object, to our eyes, right? So, if Orion didn't pay his electric bill and his belt's stars got shut off by Con Ed, we would not see his pants fall off for 1,500 years.
More amazing to me, is how, regardless of those stars' size, that our human eyes can SEE that from so far away. Mario, explain this some if you can, please.
Freaks me out.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/lea.tedder/OKAD/orion2475.jpg
I saw an article on on the news that got me thinking about the galaxy and its size. I started doing some calculations, and I could be wrong here, so please correct me, as I'm looking to learn.
I will use Orion's Belt for this example. Many of us can look up in the sky and see the three stars that make up Orion's Belt on a clear night. On average, these stars are about 1,500 light years away.
A light year is that distance that light moves in a year. Light moves 5,878,625,373,183 miles in a year. So, if Orion's Belt is 1,500 light years away, that's a distance of 8,817,938,059,774,500 miles. That's almost 9 quadrillion, by the way.
Now, similar to the way sound moves, we cannot see something until the light has traveled from the object, to our eyes, right? So, if Orion didn't pay his electric bill and his belt's stars got shut off by Con Ed, we would not see his pants fall off for 1,500 years.
More amazing to me, is how, regardless of those stars' size, that our human eyes can SEE that from so far away. Mario, explain this some if you can, please.
Freaks me out.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/lea.tedder/OKAD/orion2475.jpg