CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING TROUBLING FACT-OF-LIFE FOR MORTALS-ON-OUR-SPACE-SHIP-EARTH: God's Astronomically-Tiny Space-Ship-Earth is Essentially-Isolated as regards the most coveted material-resources; e.g., pure fossil-fuels and minerals. Whenever we run out of those material- resources in Space-Ship-Earth - - - there is no possible additional supply of such pure material- resources that can be brought to Space-Ship-Earth. To understand how the above is true - - - give careful consideration to the following: ============================ A HUGE IMAGINARY SCALE MODEL OF THE COSMOS ============================================= In an imaginarily HUGE-MUSEUM is an Imaginary-Scale-Model! Where could anybody build the as-yet never-built HUGH-MUSEUM? Scale-Model-Distances are in curly-brackets: { } { 1 inch } represents the REAL Sun-to-Space-Ship-Earth-Distance = 93,000,000 Real-Miles The above REAL-DISTANCE is called the "Astronomical-Unit" = 1 AU { 1 mile } represents the REAL distance that light travels in one year = 1 Real-Light-Year Using the above "scale" The following sketches {scale-model-distances} for: Sun's Diameter: Average-Star = { 0.01 inches } The sun is 100 of-its-diameters away-from-us. Earth's Diameter = 0.01/100 = { 0.000,1 inches } Earth's-diameter is one-hundredth the diameter-of-the-sun Jupiter's Diameter 0.1/100 = { 0.001,1 inches } Jupiter is 11 times bigger in diameter than the earth. Sun-to-Space-Ship-Earth is = ( 1.000 inches } One Astronomical-Unit Earth's Solar Orbit Diameter = { 2.00 inches } The diameter is two times the radius size. Star Betelgeuse's Diameter = { 3.70 inches } Betelgeuse is the upper-left bright star in ORION, a plasma-ball. Betelgeuse is far bigger in diameter than the earths solar-orbit! Solar-System Radius = { 36 inches } Our solar system is about 36 AU in radius, and almost empty. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Distance to the nearest star = { 4.3 miles } The nearest star is about 4.3 Light Years away in Empty-Space. About a dozen stars within = { 12 miles } Locally, stars are not well packed together in Empty-Space. Diameter of Milky-Way-Galaxy = { 2,250,000 miles } There are about 10 billion of stars in our Galaxy Our HOME Milky-Way-Galaxy is a Very-Large Spiral-Galaxy ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Distance to Nearest-Galaxy = {93,000,000 miles } There are billions of Galaxies of many sizes, bigger/smaller. "Greatest Distance" = {14,000,000,000 miles } "Cosmos-Radius" is Problematic, NOT a technically-useful-concept! If you travel far enough "straight-ahead" on-the-surface of-the-earth, you go-around to the starting place. If you travel far enough "going-straight-ahead" inside-of-a-black-hole, you go-around to the starting place. You cannot find the edge of the surface-of-the-earth, so long as you stay within/on the-surface. The cosmos is probably a huge black-hole, with many black-holes inside of it; e.g., at many Galaxies'-Centers. From the inside of a black-hole, You cannot find any exterior surface of the black hole, nor get "out". We cannot escape from our cosmos! We cannot see outside of our cosmos! We cannot truly know anything about "outside". ======================================== MATHEMATICAL-DETAILS ============================================================ The distance called the "Light-Year" is the distance traveled in one year by light and all other electromagnetic-forms-of-radiation (including radar, radio- waves, infra-red-rays, ultraviolet-rays, x-rays and gamma-rays); all of which travel at close to 300,000,000 meters per second = 300,000 kilometers per second. "Light-Year" = (300,000 Kilometers/second) x (365.25 days/year) x (24 hours/day) x (60 minutes/hour) x 60 seconds/minute) = 9,470,000,000,000 Kilometers = 9.47 x 1,000,000,000,000 = 9.47E12 Kilometers = 1 "Light-Year" ( Here, the notation "E12" means the number one, followed by 12 zeroes. ) Light travels from the sun to Astronomically-Tiny-Isolated Space-Ship-Earth in a time we can compute as: (93,000,000 Miles x 1.6 kilometers/mile)/(3,000,000 kilometers per second = 500 seconds = 8.3 minutes Sun-to-Earth = 8.3 Light-Minutes = 0.139 Light-Hours = 0.000,579 Light=Days = 0.000,016 Light-Years. <====== The (Sun to Space-Ship-Earth Distance) = 1 Light-Astronomical-Unit = 0.000,016 Light-Years The (Space-Ship-Earth to Sun Distance) = 1.0 AU as defined above = 93,000,000 Miles = 1,500,000 Kilometers The ratio of (One inch to one mile) = 0.000,016 = (1 inch/foot)/(5280 feet/mile) = <====== The ratio of (One-Inch/One-Mile) = 0.000,016 = The ratio of (One-Astronomical-Unit/One-Light-Year) In the Scale-Model: {One-Inch} REPRESENTS [1 AU = Sun-to-Earth-Distance ] {One-Mile} REPRESENTS [ 1 Light-Year Keep the above scale in mind when reading about parts of our cosmos.
Astronomers often use (3.26 Light-Years) = 1 Parsec = the distance to any star from-which our solar-orbit seen edge-on
would be one-second-of-arc across = one-degree-of-arc divided by 3600. Our moon is about 0.5 degrees across = 1,800
seconds-of-arc-across. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Consult college/university introductory texts in Modern-Astronomy for more details and careful reasoning from evidence. Consult advanced-mechanics text-books, of the college and/or graduate school level, for how to compute the (pay-load-mass) to (mass-of-fuel) ratio of round-trip-rocket-ships to the closest stars; starting from the "edge" of our solar system; and returning to the "edge" of our solar system, back "near" our sun. One trip to the nearest-star and-back would consume most of the hydrogen in the water = H-2-O of Space-Ship-Earth used as a FUSION-FUEL for plasma-propulsion; leaving the oxygen behind! The whole-trip would, In-Earth's-Time- Measurements, take well over 8.6 years, since the cosmic-speed-limit is the speed-of-light! IF the passengers survived, they would have aged less time, otherwise they would be dead! The above ignores the need for heating the ship. Most of the space between is at about 5 degrees above ABSOLUTE ZERO, and laced with deadly COSMIC-RAYS that would most-likely kill most life forms in the space-ship. Plan the trip carefully with world-wide-cooperation, so you can report back your success! ABSOLUTE-ZERO = -273 degrees C and -505 degrees F. Heating would be needed! No HOT star would be near-by!