(no subject)
The more I think about it, the more insignificant Earth seems. Lately I've been looking at a lot of astronomy photographs, nebulas and galaxies and the such, and they're so much more than just pretty to look at.
It takes roughly 8 minutes for light to get from the Sun to Earth. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Some quick math will tell us that the distance from the Sun to Earth is 89,280,000 miles.
Take a second and try to think of that realistically. Flying from LA to Miami takes around 4.5 hours. It's also around 2,500 miles. Some more quick (and rough) math will let you know that flying to the Sun in a airplane (ha) would take 160,704 hours. Nonstop. Just a little more math (the last bit for a minute) tells you that that's a little over 18 years or flight. That's all unimportant though, seeing as spacecraft fly many many times faster than standard planes.
Ok, so that's the distance to the sun, in as relative terms as I can think to use. The next closest star is something like 24,000,000,000,000 miles away. That's 268,817 times farther than the sun. Using our faithful space-airplane, that's 4,930,000 years of flying. In the fastest space shuttle we have at the moment, that would still be around 85,000 years.
This beauty here is known as NGC1300 (there's no name b/c there are too many things like it in the sky to give each one a real name). This galaxy is 46,000,000 light years away. One light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles, so 46,000,000 light years is 26,982,201,600,000,000,000 miles. In the fastest spaceship in the world, it would take 955,619,640,000 years to get to this one galaxy. While that's fun to think about, also take into account that this image you're seeing is 85,000 light-years across. Remember, 8 light minutes from the Sun to Earth. This is big. Bigger than anything (no offense) your mind can fathom. There's simply nothing to compare it to. Then take into account all the "suns" that are in there. Then the planets. Then how many galaxies there are (or, that we know of). What are the odds that humans are the only "high-intelligence" beings in the universe? If we're the pinnacle of universal intelligence, please kill me now.
If you want, go to google and do an image search for either "galaxy" or "nebula". You'll see some amazing images, which are all photographs, mind you. They're also all far, far away. Some are thousands of times farther than my example.
When you start to think about it, there's a lot more out there than just Earth. People get too caught up here.. too confined.. too comfortable. To me, we're done with Earth. We've learned everything about it, populated it, became the rulers of it, been to every place on it (even outside of it).. It's time for man to move to the heavens. It's the only logical thing to do.
If you actually read this and it interested you at all, let's talk about it sometime. I'm open to any knowledge about the stars, and maybe we can exchange theories or something.
It takes roughly 8 minutes for light to get from the Sun to Earth. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Some quick math will tell us that the distance from the Sun to Earth is 89,280,000 miles.
Take a second and try to think of that realistically. Flying from LA to Miami takes around 4.5 hours. It's also around 2,500 miles. Some more quick (and rough) math will let you know that flying to the Sun in a airplane (ha) would take 160,704 hours. Nonstop. Just a little more math (the last bit for a minute) tells you that that's a little over 18 years or flight. That's all unimportant though, seeing as spacecraft fly many many times faster than standard planes.
Ok, so that's the distance to the sun, in as relative terms as I can think to use. The next closest star is something like 24,000,000,000,000 miles away. That's 268,817 times farther than the sun. Using our faithful space-airplane, that's 4,930,000 years of flying. In the fastest space shuttle we have at the moment, that would still be around 85,000 years.
This beauty here is known as NGC1300 (there's no name b/c there are too many things like it in the sky to give each one a real name). This galaxy is 46,000,000 light years away. One light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles, so 46,000,000 light years is 26,982,201,600,000,000,000 miles. In the fastest spaceship in the world, it would take 955,619,640,000 years to get to this one galaxy. While that's fun to think about, also take into account that this image you're seeing is 85,000 light-years across. Remember, 8 light minutes from the Sun to Earth. This is big. Bigger than anything (no offense) your mind can fathom. There's simply nothing to compare it to. Then take into account all the "suns" that are in there. Then the planets. Then how many galaxies there are (or, that we know of). What are the odds that humans are the only "high-intelligence" beings in the universe? If we're the pinnacle of universal intelligence, please kill me now.
If you want, go to google and do an image search for either "galaxy" or "nebula". You'll see some amazing images, which are all photographs, mind you. They're also all far, far away. Some are thousands of times farther than my example.
When you start to think about it, there's a lot more out there than just Earth. People get too caught up here.. too confined.. too comfortable. To me, we're done with Earth. We've learned everything about it, populated it, became the rulers of it, been to every place on it (even outside of it).. It's time for man to move to the heavens. It's the only logical thing to do.
If you actually read this and it interested you at all, let's talk about it sometime. I'm open to any knowledge about the stars, and maybe we can exchange theories or something.