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February 22, 2017

The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.

ayouarehere.jpg

Our Universe is too vast for even the most imaginative sci-fi: We say that the observable Universe extends for tens of billions of light years,
but the only way to really comprehend this, as humans, is to break matters down into a series of steps, starting with our visceral understanding of the size of the Earth. A non-stop flight from Dubai to San Francisco covers a distance of about 8,000 miles – roughly equal to the diameter of the Earth. The Sun is much bigger; its diameter is just over 100 times Earth’s. And the distance between the Earth and the Sun is about 100 times larger than that, close to 100 million miles. This distance, the radius of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, is a fundamental measure in astronomy; the Astronomical Unit, or AU. The spacecraft Voyager 1, for example, launched in 1977 and, travelling at 11 miles per second, is now 137 AU from the Sun. But the stars are far more distant than this. The nearest, Proxima Centauri, is about 270,000 AU, or 4.25 light years away. You would have to line up 30 million Suns to span the gap between the Sun and Proxima Centauri.

Posted by gerardvanderleun at February 22, 2017 10:50 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

Words just don't do it justice.

Here's some visual references from Vox I favorited a while back. Warning, you be need duct tape to repair you skull after viewing -

http://www.vox.com/2015/4/17/8432733/space-maps

Posted by: tim at February 22, 2017 12:01 PM

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've seen that explanation. I'd be rich.

Posted by: BillH at February 22, 2017 2:40 PM

Not only that, it doesn't care if you're alive or dead.

Posted by: Sven at February 22, 2017 3:33 PM

At the linked article there is a comment thread on "Is it possible to square our small existence with the vastness of cosmic space?"

Astrophysicists John Barrow and Frank Tipler have pointed out that the universe had to either expand or collapse. If it collapsed, we would not be here to discuss this question or any other. But it expanded and in so doing stars were formed which created the elements necessary for life.

So whether one planet or 500 billion have life is not relevant to squaring "our small existence with the vastness of cosmic space." If no life had formed anywhere, the universe would still be just as large as it is now.

And boy, would that be a waste of space.

Posted by: Donald Sensing at February 22, 2017 8:08 PM

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