Playing with google earth+sky with my son, trying to explain the distances from here to there. the crab nebula is 6500 light years away- if we use a pea as a scale of the earth how far away would 6500 light years be ?? Anyone,come on i know lot you like a challenge!! (I told him from here (portsmouth) to grans(barrow-in-furness) am i even close??)

your probably way off.

my boss does this in spare time/days off.
this is his website.
http://www.btinternet.com/~theplanetearthcentre/

isn't a light year the the distance light travels through space in 1 earth year?

take into account the speed of light and... i'd say its about 1 and a half times as far as portsmouth to barrow in furness

Edit: 1 light year is 9,460,730,472,580.8 km

[Edited on 5/11/07 by blakep82]

By my calcs quite a bit out. I reckon 30 million miles is nearer the mark, won't get there on a tank in mine :-(

I was working on a 10 mm pea so we seem to all roughly agree....

[Edited on 5/11/07 by triafgg]

assuming pea dia of 7mm

i also get 33.8 million km

I know that the light we get from the sun is 4 earth years old

if the solar system was 7mm then the galaxy would cover most of england. It might be a good idea to start small and work you're way up to distant things!

oops my bad, 6500 light years isnt even out of the galaxy!

[Edited on 5/11/07 by JoelP]

earth a 6mm pea, about 18 million miles.

quote:

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Originally posted by speedyxjs
I know that the light we get from the sun is 4 earth years old

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No idea, but I love this....



Planets

As a resident of Barrow-in-Furness I can confirm that the Sunlight never arrived, wether it set off 8 minutes ago or not....

[Edited on 6/11/07 by Colnago_Man]

Earth to sun varies between 91,miles and 94.5 million Miles. This distance was not known until recently and it is called the astronomical unit or AU

say 92.5 Average/ 186,000/ sec ( light)
= 497.311827956989247 secs
Divided by 60 =8.28 mins

Or 8mins 16.8 secs.

So if it goes out we have time for a coffee a fag and a couple of **** with the wife before we realise !

quote:

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Originally posted by Liam

quote:

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Originally posted by speedyxjs
I know that the light we get from the sun is 4 earth years old

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Dunno where you heard that - it's just over 8 minutes

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