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To: JRandomFreeper
My wife gave me the National Geographic World Atlas for Christmas 2 years ago, and some of the best illustrations in the book show the relative sizes of our Solar System, compared to the entire Milky Way, and again in relation to the "nearest" stars. The scale expands to hundreds of millions of light years...if you study the illustrations and consider the scales involved it will give you the chills.

Some of the images we have seen from Hubble are simply staggering. One of my favorites is the Horsehead Nebula. The head is "only" five light years tall....



Consider that one light year is equivalent to about 5,878,786,100,000 miles...and it takes a beam of light a full year to travel that distance...

Now, multiply by five...




28 posted on 09/04/2010 9:04:43 PM PDT by Bean Counter (Now what kind of a geroo are you anyway?)
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To: Bean Counter
I do baking and cosmology in MKS/SI/CGS (or whatever they call it today) standard units, but I get your drift. It's a big, beautiful universe.

I stand amazed in the obvious presence.

But what does a cook know about cosmology? ;)

/johnny

29 posted on 09/04/2010 9:16:16 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Bean Counter; SunkenCiv
"Survivor" Black Holes May Be Mid-Sized
X-ray Discovery Points to Location of Missing Matter
Galactic Super-volcano in Action
Discovery of Most Recent Supernova in Our Galaxy

37 posted on 09/05/2010 10:23:12 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach ( Support Geert Wilders)
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