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t1_iuc8dan wrote

You are wondering about this picture. Just imagine, "light" needs 4.3 years to go from earth to the star nearest to our solar system. And there is nothing but "empty" space in between. Think about it for size.

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t1_iudlkjk wrote

One funny thing I read was “when you see a star in the night sky just think, that light travelled for millions of years at the speed of light without being stopped by anything until your eyeball got in its way”

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t1_iudmg3v wrote

another anecdote is,

"A star which we see today must have emitted that light billions of years ago, at the same time when Dinosaurs roamed the earth. To a planet roaming around that star, our sun would be another star. Any one seeing our sun from that distance would see the light emitted by our sun billions of year ago.

So, much so that, if they were using similar telescopes like us, they would actually see dinosaurs, and not us."

Its actually overwhelming and mindblowing to even think that way.

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t1_iudsa5b wrote

And the fact that the star were actually seeing is probably dead and gone already as well.

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t1_iud4dcd wrote

Yep, the distances are really unfathomable to me. The CLOSEST star is 4.3 light years away and light travels at over one billion kilometers per hour (I believe).

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t1_iud501a wrote

You should watch the series "Expanse", its one of the most realistic Sci Fi series I have watched. There, you will realize that travelling inside our solar system, specially to the outer planets, is also too long.

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OP t1_iuc8w5m wrote

billions of light years

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t1_iud1gxy wrote

He said 4.3light years anon, not billion.

And to put it into scale a lightyear is roughly 100Trillion kilometer.

To put that into scale

Light travels in 8 minutes from the sun to our earth traveling a rough 91million kilometers

To put that into scale

If light would travel our planet 8 times around (roughly 300.000km) it would take light 1 second.

To put that into scale

Usain Bolt is currently the fastest man to ever walk 100 meters in roughly 9seconds, if he could keep that pace it would still take him

If he would run at max speed he would take +/- 6.666hours Just over 277days straight of walking that pace To go the distance light would in a single second.

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