Correcamino

Every Sunday I hike to the top of a (modest) local peak before sunrise. This gives me about an hour of (usually, weather cooperating!) excellent sky observation time. With the current alignment of Mars, Saturn, and Antares it is easy to locate the position (not an actual visible object, of course) of the center of the Milky Way. Last Sunday the center (by coincidence) lay directly behind the peak I was climbing. This made me consider: if I continued walking at my current pace (~5 km/h) until I actually reached the center of the galaxy (about 8 KPC), it would take me about 5.5 x 10 exp 12