Wingardium_Draconis 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.
WarcraftFarscape 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”
Wingardium_Draconis 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.
MVRK_3 t1_iudsa5b wrote
And the fact that the star were actually seeing is probably dead and gone already as well.
dingdongjohnson68 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).
splifingate t1_iudueon wrote
Yes; 1,079,252,848.8 k/h in a vacuum :)
[deleted] t1_iud4rui wrote
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Wingardium_Draconis 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.
EDFLsnape OP t1_iuc8w5m wrote
billions of light years
xVikingson 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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