“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Psalms 19:1
I’m not a scientist, but how fast is fast? Jet liners routinely approach and sustain speeds of 500 miles an hour at altitude. But light travels at 186,282.4 miles per second. At that speed, a flash of light can travel around the world seven times in one second. Light reflected from the moon’s surface reaches the earth in roughly 1.3 seconds.
Take the speed of light and multiply it by 60; that’s a light-minute. Take that figure and multiply it by 60 again; that’s a light-hour. Multiply the result of that by 24; that’s a light-day. Multiply that by 365; and that’s a light-year: roughly six trillion miles (a 6 followed by 12 zeros). The distance light travels in a year. It takes sun light roughly 8 minutes and 20 seconds to arrive on earth from the sun.
Our airliner traveling at 500 miles an hour would take just shy of three weeks, nonstop, to arrive at the moon; it would require just over 21 years to get to our sun. To arrive at the next-closest sun to us (in the Alpha Centauri system) on our airliner would require 6 million years…and we haven’t even left the Milky Way galaxy!
I’m not a scientist, but how far is far? Let’s say we could travel at a sub-warp speed of 93 million miles an hour. That capability would allow us to fly to the sun in one hour. The next closest sun is in the Alpha Centauri system and still well within our own Milky Way galaxy. The trip to that spot, at 93 million miles an hour, would take us almost 35 years of non-stop travel.
We are told that Andromeda is the next closest galaxy to our own Milky Way. The entire galaxy is moving toward us at 75 miles a second…but don’t be concerned. Even at that speed it will still take approximately 6 billion years before we collide. On a clear night, in the winter months (Aug – Mar), Andromeda can be seen with the naked eye as a misty patch of light (easier to detect if you are in the Northern hemisphere). At 93 million miles an hour I’ve been told it would take us 4.2 trillion years to get there.
The Hubble Telescope has detected a galaxy 13 billion light years from earth. That distance is 78 sextillion miles (a 78 with 21 zeros following it). Again, at 93 million miles an hour, it would take 20 quadrillion years of travel!
“Lift up thine eyes round about, and behold…” (Isaiah 49:18)
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