Posted on 05/28/2011 5:30:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
[Composite Image Credit & Copyright: Dennis L. Mammana (TWAN)] Explanation: If you're driving down a dark road on a starry night, you might want to check the odometer. Earlier this month, when traveling astronomer Dennis Mammana did he was greeted with the significant mileage reading of 186,282 miles. That's the number of miles light travels in one second. Or, if you prefer kilometers, the number you are looking for is 299,792. Mammana muses that in driving to countless observatories, star parties, and night sky photo shoots it has taken his 1998 vintage sport utility vehicle over 13 years to cover that distance. Of course, he considers his next important mileage milestone to be the distance to the Moon.
(Excerpt) Read more at apod.nasa.gov ...
Objects in your mirrors are closer than they appear.
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That is going to cost a fortune in gasoline.
Ah yes. When I look in the mirror I try to be objective. Don't know how close I get.
Several years old, but a great introduction to physics and math all around.
Thanks onedoug.
My nephew is over and i tried to get him to watch this but he is totally disinterested. He is 8 years old
How old do you think a kid might be interested in something like this video? I really am not sure.
I confess to being a little geeky, and I loaded in the graphic to check the scale, it’s right. :’)
I’d like to find something like that for the whole solar system.
I suppose it would be kind of pointless to have one for light speed from the sun to Alpha C. You’d have to have a lot of time on your hands waiting for that one.
Objects in your mirrors are closer than they appear.
As an aside on my bathroom mirror is a small sticker that reads...
"Objects in the mirror may look older than they are"
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
Is that really how fast it goes?
That would be pretty close. The moon averages between 250,000 and 500,000 miles away so it would be roughly between 1 and a half and 3 light seconds.
Fatter too, in my case.
Didn’t they use that in the opening to ‘The Brady Bunch’ ?
BTW when I took a pic of the supermoon, my camera actually told me how far away it was. I know it was estimating, but I thought that was kind of cool.
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