Growing up in the country, I had the privilege of seeing the stars at night. In the Spring I would sometimes accompany my dad as he made sure all the sprinkers were functioning properly, thereby keeping the cranberries from freezing.
Those clear, cold nights allowed a good view of our milky way galaxy. In addition to individual stars, you can't take your eyes off the white splash all across the center of the sky--like milk.
On summer nights
I used to lay on my back in the grass and think about distance.Our galaxy is about 100,000 light years across, with about 100 billion stars,
and a black hole in the center with a mass of approximately 3 million solar masses. Within range of our radio telescopes we know there are about 100
billion galaxies. Who knows how many are beyond that?
If we traveled to the nearest star at the speed of light, it would take
4 years just to get there. I used to hope that someday I would be able to at
least visit other parts of our galaxy, but unfortunately God put the stars
too far apart for that to happen. Oh well. Not in this life.
2 comments:
Hmmm quite nostalgic and scratched the memory to think about the past when I used to see the stars late in the night..billions of stars and countless efforts of counting them but never got any success...anyways nice blog refreshed my knowledge about our huuuuge galaxy and felt so sorry for Mr. Rod who couldn't make out to visit it,but I am sure earth is better place to be atleast to give some soothing satisfaction :D
If I ever get a spaceship, you'll be one of the first I invite along!
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