Wondering about distances and Easter eggs.

Yesterday I talked a little bit about black holes and in a comment that Ben in Texas left, he said he gets dizzy thinking about the distances.  I would think that no one could actually comprehend the distances.  Any planet that could possibly support life would be hundreds of thousands or millions or billions of light years away,  Why just our own back yard, our galaxy is up to a couple of hundred thousand light years across.

Now, just to help explain just how far a light year is, get your calculators out and make sure I am doing the calculations correctly.  Fist, we have to know the speed of light; which is 186282.397 miles per second.  (I use the speed of light, which is also the speed of radio waves in space, to calculate the length of antennae for different ham band radio frequencies.  Of course the radio waves travel slightly slower in different materials)

186282.397 miles per second is a big number, but that is only how far it travels in a second.  Above, we are talking in light years, how far it travels in a year.  OK Ben, let me put it in perspective by easing up on the light year:

In one second:  186282.4 miles

In one minute:   11176944.0 miles

In on hour:         670616640 miles

In one day:          16,094,799,360 miles

And in on year - - I don’t have room for all the zeros.

I hope this gives you an idea of the vastness of space is and so far, everything (except some neutrinos) has the speed of light as a speed limit.  Therefore, I don’t think the probability of being visited by aliens is very high.  But you never can tell.

Now, a little on the bright side; Easter is coming up a week from tomorrow and I want to be among the first to give you an Easter card.  Just click the link below:

http://www.terrisfp1.com/holidays/chick.html

You all have a great day now, slow down and watch you speed, you hear?