Quite effective, and the fullscreen is certainly merited. No doubt there are even larger stars out there, since the only ones we can measure are the ones in just our neighborhood of the galaxy. What a shock this would be to the ancient desert primitives who thought the sky was just a canopy over a flat Earth (itself envisioned as much smaller than it actually is).
To look at it another way, the Voyager space probes are traveling away from our solar system at several times the speed of a bullet, but it would take them 75,000 years to reach the nearest other star (if they were headed in that direction, which they aren't).
I do wish they would get the direction of planetary rotation right, though. It's a minor irritant but I always notice that when it's wrong.
My mind is so limited I can't even conceive of traveling several times the speed of a bullet, much less taking 75,000 years to reach another star! In fact, Even though I enjoy looking at videos of the "outer limits", it's not my usual field of interest, so wouldn't know from Adam which way the planets rotate. But I will look it up for future reference. ; )
Numbers to mind-boggling to grasp. Now we learn- "Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone." ...our galaxy Alone.....habitable temperature zone. My, oh my.
Quite effective, and the fullscreen is certainly merited. No doubt there are even larger stars out there, since the only ones we can measure are the ones in just our neighborhood of the galaxy. What a shock this would be to the ancient desert primitives who thought the sky was just a canopy over a flat Earth (itself envisioned as much smaller than it actually is).
ReplyDeleteTo look at it another way, the Voyager space probes are traveling away from our solar system at several times the speed of a bullet, but it would take them 75,000 years to reach the nearest other star (if they were headed in that direction, which they aren't).
I do wish they would get the direction of planetary rotation right, though. It's a minor irritant but I always notice that when it's wrong.
My mind is so limited I can't even conceive of traveling several times the speed of a bullet, much less taking 75,000 years to reach another star! In fact, Even though I enjoy looking at videos of the "outer limits", it's not my usual field of interest, so wouldn't know from Adam which way the planets rotate. But I will look it up for future reference. ; )
DeleteHate to be a civilization anywhere near those massive stars when they exhaust their fuel and go super nova.
ReplyDeleteMaybe all these groups who want to secede could relocate to one of those planets.
DeleteWe're not that lucky.
DeleteNumbers to mind-boggling to grasp. Now we learn-
ReplyDelete"Astronomers using NASA data have calculated for the first time that in our galaxy alone, there are at least 8.8 billion stars with Earth-size planets in the habitable temperature zone."
...our galaxy Alone.....habitable temperature zone. My, oh my.
Makes us rather hard to find, doesn't it? And for all we know, and for all our curiosity... that could be a rather healthy state of affairs.
Delete