just a perspective on things for beginners.

[Northern Soul man]

Just been looking around and found a little insight into the distances that we encounter in the world of astronomy.

Voyager ( 1 and 2) were launched in the 1970's - such a fantastic craft - it sent back some of the early images of the outer planets - the gas giants - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Only now Voyager 1 (launched in 1977) has been heading out of the solar system and is now 17 light hours away from Earth - just think the craft has been travelling for the best part of 35 years and is only 17 light hours from earth - the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) is 4.4 light years away - so if Voyager could travel at the speed of light (186 thousand miles per second) it would take nearly four and a half years to get there. THINK ON .

Some of the objects that are visible in back yard scopes are more than 2 million light years away. THINK ON!!!!!!! Paul

[moriniboy]

Kind of makes you feel a bit small in the overall scheme of things

[Northern Soul man]

I know Moriniboy 17 light hours to 4 1/2 light YEARS WOW !!!

[freeflyjay]

Just been looking around and found a little insight into the distances that we encounter in the world of astronomy.

Voyager ( 1 and 2) were launched in the 1970's - such a fantastic craft - it sent back some of the early images of the outer planets - the gas giants - Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Only now Voyager 1 (launched in 1977) has been heading out of the solar system and is now 17 light hours away from Earth - just think the craft has been travelling for the best part of 35 years and is only 17 light hours from earth - the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) is 4.4 light years away - so if Voyager could travel at the speed of light (186 thousand miles per second) it would take nearly four and a half years to get there. THINK ON .

Some of the objects that are visible in back yard scopes are more than 2 million light years away. THINK ON!!!!!!! Paul

can see a bit further than that, i`m a newbe but i was looking at m81 a while back before it was cloudy forever and a day and thats 12 million light years away

[sologuitarist61]

It really is amazing that the probe is still going after all this time, and they are still getting useful data I understand.

[Northern Soul man]

nice 1 guys - these galaxies were looking at are absolutely massive star factories - the distances are immense - just think you can see these from your own back yard with your scopes - just think - you can go outside - set up - and away you go - think of the whole experience - get out - look - how far your lookin into the past. Paul

[Northern Soul man]

Hey Richard - the data - absolutely amazing - all coming back to a radio dish in Cheshire - WOW - Paul

[Qualia]

Always liked this little scale:

[Brighton Belle]

17 light hours in 35 years? Ahh,bless it's little cotton socks

[Demo johnny]

Watching Horizon the other week when my father was up staying I think he finally got it, well at least a bit of it. The guy on the TV was talking over a picture of a nebula and said its 2000 light years away, my dad turned to me and said so how far is that. I rewound the telly as i heard the guy say the next bit, so when that light left the nebula the Romans were walking around. Pause as he said what? What does he mean? Then explained it to him and he was like ohhhh! That andromeda you showed me how far is that? Mars thats pretty close then, he said, well yes and no, I said 14-15 minutes for a radio signal to reach earth from the curiosity. This is where he lost it a again so basic explanation if a man on mars turns on a light, leaves it on for 10 minutes and we could see this light from earth by the time we see it he has already turned it off. What, like we are looking backwards in time! Ahhh...

[Mav359]

17 Lights Hours is how much sleep my little brother needs each night the lazy .......

I like to think not how far away it is but the time aspect in terms of what you are looking at, what we see as Andromeda today is the light from when humans were barley standing erect on our world. The other thing that always gets me is the fact some of our AP shots contain stars that no longer exist!!!!!

The mind boggles

[Naemeth]

I can just imagine in the very far future (and no, I'm not going to work it out!) when Voyager 1 is calculated to have hit a light year. It will be fairly big news, except everyone on Earth will wonder just what Voyager 1 is, they will trawl through the archives of the old Internet (which has been updated to ~V.10.0 by that future) and finally see:

"Oh, that's what Voyager 1 is? We passed that spacecraft ages ago, shall we send it back home?"

[allcart]

they wouldn't have to. Captain kirk will already have found it.

[breezy]

i tried the bloke on mars with a light expalnation on the mrs, half an hour later i finally got a glimmer of acknowledgement, and she aint dim by any means.

i think its just that people generally dont realise the vastness of space

[Brighton Belle]

I remember being a very small child and trying to get my head round infinity, I would sit for ages just thinking about it. At age 6 I finally decided it was impossible and guessed I would understand it when I was older.......hmmmmm

[Northern Soul man]

OK, so we're just going out of the Solar System with Voyager 1 - the next "Milestone" would be - say, the nearest star (Alpha Centauri) at a distance of around 4.2 light years - lets go!!!. Using Ion Drive Propulsion - very efficient - used in a few space crafts recently - not quite sure of the mechanics (Solar powered Ion thrusters used to power thrusters) I think - time to reach the Centauri System - 81000 (thousand) years - give or take a year or two.

The fastest way (to date) and tested by Spacecraft is Gravitational assist which puts the spacecrafts on a highly elliptical orbits say - around the Sun (which Voyager ! used to great effect) to pass very close to the Sun - here the craft gains terrific speed due to the Physics of the gravitational "pull" whilst passing such a large body - the craft was "sent" (catapulted) at terrific speed onto the next large body - say one of the Gas giants for further "slingshots" to attain speeds in the reach of 150 000 (thousand) miles an hour it would only take around 19000 (thousand) years.

I think these figures are "relative" to speeds attained - with the slingshot, for example, once out of the reaches of the Solar System and no more "bodies" to use to maintain maximum speed - surely, the craft will slow - I think speeds suggested are "constant" speeds and with zero gravity - Its like using the "combined" cycle to work out how many miles your car will do to the gallon - you get the picture.

The next step would be out to the next measurement used in the countless galaxies out there - the Parsec - 3.25 light years - the Kilo parsec - 3.25 x 1000 light years - 3.25 000 (thousand) light years and then the Mega Parsec 3.25 x 1 000 000 3.25 (MILLION) light years.

Not sure how the sums hold up - perhaps there's a few budding cosmologists on here with better advice - but looking at the distances involved and the number of theories "thrown" into the mix - you just try and pin down an astronomer for the age of the universe - here we go!!!!!!!. Paul.

[breezy]

Er I'm lost lol

[bendiddley]

i love thinking about the distances and the vastness of space. when i'm viewing through my scope, it makes makes what i am seeing seem even more amazing

[Wobbly Bob]

All I can say is WORMHOLES !!!!!!. Should speed things up a bit.

[Sepharus]

Sagan said if we ever flew past one with a more advanced craft, he hoped it would be left to carry on its mission. I kinda agree with him. This distance stuff keeps me up at night, that's why I bought a scope in the first place. If i'm not gonna sleep, might as well look at whats keeping me up!

[KevUU]

I can just imagine in the very far future (and no, I'm not going to work it out!) when Voyager 1 is calculated to have hit a light year. It will be fairly big news, except everyone on Earth will wonder just what Voyager 1 is, they will trawl through the archives of the old Internet (which has been updated to ~V.10.0 by that future) and finally see:

"Oh, that's what Voyager 1 is? We passed that spacecraft ages ago, shall we send it back home?"

There is a train of thought that it's never worth sending a craft off for a long journey like this, as next year's technology will overtake it so why bother? Okay, I get that as a thought argument but Voyager 1 is still out there and there's still nothing near it. I find it amazing that something launched before I was born is still going strong, and depressing that it's still the state of the art for extra-solar -system exploration. I work in the space industry, and I long for a groundbreaking project like this to come along again.

[freeflyjay]

well kev i`d call the mars rover fairly ground breaking, in many ways more impressive than the moon landings with that landing sequence.

[KevUU]

well kev i`d call the mars rover fairly ground breaking, in many ways more impressive than the moon landings with that landing sequence.

Granted

And there have been detailed explorations of plenty of other solar system bodies, along with novel propulsion etc (JAXAs solar sail powered sample-return mission to a meteorite springs to mind, if my memory is working right today); and I think there're more examples in the pipeline, eg more detailed studies of Jupiters moons etc.

All of that's great, and I understand why we haven't had manned missions since Apollo and are concentrating on more detailed Mars missions and more Earth Observation science missions etc. But while part of me knows that all of that is awesome, another part of me still yearns for something truly new and big and amazing. Does that make any sense?

(This is the bit where you ask "like what then?" and I have to admit I have no idea... )

[KevUU]

*hastily updates*

When I say no manned missions since Apollo, I mean beyond Earth orbit of course. No, even I can't deny the ISS is pretty cool stuff

[freeflyjay]

If there was funding we could put a man on mars within a few years, but it`s vastly expensive and that money can be spent better if it`s only for scientific gain rarther than "oh look we can put a man on mars" and without the space race days probably not going to happen that soon, i still hope that i`ll see it in my life time but i`m 41 in a couple of weeks so i hope they start planning it within the next decade or so,

it`d personally prefered to see i probe sent to europa and through the ice than the mars rover, at least there would of been a chance of actually finding some allien life thats still alive, there have been quite a few ground breaking missions since voyager but unfortunatly the funding isn`t available for that truly wow mission. unless china starts to do some major work and kickstart another space race then it`s going to be slow and steady.