In a year, light travels about 10 TRILLION km. now stop and think about that one for a bit before continuing. In other words, light travels further than the average human does in a lifetime within 24 seconds! Ok. In one second, light (photons) travel 300,000 km. So now let me introduce to you a new scale of distance measurement. There are single stars within our very own galaxy with circumferences so big it'd take a 747 jet at cruising speed over 1,000 years to circumnavigate! ONE STAR! you'd still not make it to our nearest planetary neighbor (Venus again). let's say you traveled by foot, bike, plane, train, automobile, horse, rickshaw and covered 14 million km in your lifetime. that wouldn't even get you close to our nearest planet (Venus)! Think about that for a moment! Let's round up even further. don't ask where I got that sum! I rounded up for good measure!Д§ million kilometers. let's just say you travel a total of 7 million km in your lifetime. let's call it 6.5 million km to our lifetime of distance traveled. 80k x 80 years adds another 6.4 million km. How about vehicular transportation? Let's say we use private/public transportation to get to/from work, to/from family & friends, to/from travel destinations, etc.

it'd be safe to say you would walk about 177,000 km in your lifetime. If you lived to 80, and walked (on average), about 7,500 steps per day. Let's put these numbers into some semblance of perspective. If you thought comprehending geologic time from my last blog (with regard to the upper mantle's movement) was mind-boggling, imagine the scale we must deal with when it comes to interstellar objects such as nebulae. Search for images of nebulae online, and you'll be in for a treat! And as you look at the photos, imagine their size. Also known as the 'Pillars of Creation', the Eagle Nebula is 70 light years 'tall' by 55 light years 'across'.

Orion nebula 3 inch telescope view