Let's take a moment to try to understand how vast the universe we live in truly is. Our earth is 24,901 miles in circumference. It is one planet of eight in our solar system. Our solar system is part of one star system. This star is known as our sun. Its gravitational pull causes all of the celestial objects in near proximity to orbit around it. This, along with the rotation of the earth, gives us our days and our nights. However, the sun is not the only light-bringer to the universe. We are surrounded by many of these stars yet they are too far away to really get the effects of their existence. This blog post tries to put that into perspective. Our nearest neighboring star, otherwise known as Proxima Centauri, is 4.243 light years away. As I have stated in my previous blog and many of you already know, a light year is how far light travels in one year. Considering that light travels exceptionally fast (almost 300 million meters per second), that is a great distance. But in the vastness of the universe, 4.243 light years is a stones throw away. We hope that one day, if the earth is uninhabitable and that the planets in our solar system cannot sustain life, that we can travel to this star system and inhabit it.
This may seem completely unattainable at this point in human existence, but it does not put it out of the realm of possibility. Scientists have studied our universe for decades and it seems that it is just under 14 billion years old. It is also 93 billion light years across, the observable universe, that is. So, when talking about distances this great, 4.243 light years doesn't seem that far away. Right now, Voyager I is on a path to a star system. It is travelling at 38,000 mph and is 11.7 billion miles away from us after 40 years since its launch. However, it will not reach this star system for another 40,000 years. The hope is that we can advance our space travel capabilities to the point where 40,000 years can turn into 20-40 years. This rate of travel would still be slow for intergalactic travel, yet would make it viable for expanding our species to other planets outside of our "mini" system of planets.
Just the sheer size of the astrological bodies in our universe is why I get pretty overwhelmed by astronomy astrophysics. To say that 4.243 light years is a stones throw absolutely baffles me and then you follow that up with voyager not even getting to Proxima Centauri for another 40,000 years. It's possibly the easiest way to make me feel super small and insignificant.
ReplyDeleteI knew the time it would take for Voyager was in the thousands of years but did not realize that it was 40,000. That is a number to strive to shrink in the coming years hopefully it will be in our life time.
ReplyDeletethats insane! it would be great to cut the travel time down down though, i can't imagine what kind of trouble they will have getting the ancient electronics to even work in 40,000 years
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