Distance and Speed

Bint e Hawa

Government College University, Lahore.

Distance and speed are really simple things that children now-a-days
learn in Physics and Mathematics on a daily basis. Humans have
experienced and are only familiar with distances that are a few
Thousand Kilometers and speeds of only a few hundred miles per hour.
But Distance and Speed take an enormous turn when we spice things up
and take it to space.

Our Solar System has an enormously huge span. The Diameter of the
solar system is mind boggling. Although we have determined the
diameter of the Solar System but it boggles our mind when we think very
deeply of how enormous and huge the solar system alone actually is. If
we decide to determine the Diameter of Solar system then we have to go
to the last acceptable planet in the solar system. Neptune. If we take the
Diameter according to Neptune, it would be 9.09 Billion Kilometers.
Now if we consider Sedna, the dwarf planet that revolves around the
solar system then the diameter would become a mind blowing 287.56
Billion Kilometers. In numbers we would write it as
“287,560,000,000,000 Kilometers”.

Now let us talk about speed. If you want to go to Pluto, in a space ship
that covers a distance of 50000 kilometers in an hour it will take you
about 9 years to reach Pluto from Earth (note that Pluto is just 5 billion
kilometers away from Earth). Now if you want to visit Sedna, that is 13.5
Billion kilometers from Earth, it will take you approximately 24.3 Years
to reach it. But we have just merely started talking about Distance and
Speed.

The closest neighbor star that we have discovered is Alpha Centauri.

This star is located 4.3 Light Years away from Earth. Now here things
start to get really far away. A Light Year is basically a unit of Distance.
To be more precise and simple, it is another scale where you measure
distances. But not just any scale, this scale is used for the measurement
with respect to the speed of light. A light year is defined as the distance
travelled by light in one year. So, Alpha Centauri is 4.3 Light years away
this means that it will take light 4.3 Years to reach that star.

The highest achievable speed in the whole universe is by light. Light

travels at a Mind blowing speed approximately about 300,000
Kilometers a second. Now that is really fast. Believe me, its scarier that
just fast. How much scarier? Well to put the speed of light into a scarier
perspective let us assume that light revolves around the Earth. In just
one second, light will revolve the earth 7 times.

1 Light Year is 5.9 Trillion Miles. So that means Alpha Centauri is 25.37
Trillion miles away from Earth and even the fastest thing in the
Universe (Light) will take 4.3 Years to reach it. With today’s man
technology and the speed produced by it, we won’t be able to reach this
star. Not within our lifespans.

Now let’s take things to a more terrifying scale. Remember that Light is
the fastest thing in the whole universe. But the Entire Universe is so
surprisingly huge that our puny little brains cannot comprehend. Our
Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 Light Years in diameter. This means that
it takes light 100,000 Years to reach the other point of our Galaxy. The
Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way and it is
headed our way. It is on a course collision with our Galaxy and it is 2.537
Million Light Years away from us. It will collide with our galaxy in 4
Billion years and it is travelling at a speed of 402,000 Kilometers per
hour.

The entire universe is 93 Billion Light years in diameter. So this means

that light takes 93 Billion Years to start from one point of the Universe
and go to the other point. And this number 93 Billion Light Years is such
a huge number that our modern day calculators won’t be able to write it
digit by digit. 93 Billion light years is approximately 88 Septillion
Kilometers. And a Septillion means 10 to the power 24.
So we should be proud of ourselves for all the development that we have
did in these thousands of years. But we should remain humble because
we cannot beat Nature. The Conception of being the greatest of all is
completely a deception. When we see further out in the skies and the
outer reaches of space, we realize that we have yet to achieve what is
seemingly impossible.