psychothumbs@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.worldEnglish · 9 months agoNASA found a super-Earth. It's in a tantalizing place.mashable.comexternal-linkmessage-square43fedilinkarrow-up10arrow-down10
arrow-up10arrow-down1external-linkNASA found a super-Earth. It's in a tantalizing place.mashable.compsychothumbs@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.worldEnglish · 9 months agomessage-square43fedilink
minus-squareFaceDeer@kbin.sociallinkfedilinkarrow-up0·9 months agoWhich is funny because that would have been even more inaccurate. “Millions of light years” is off by a factor of 15,000 or more. “Millions of miles” is off by a factor of 400,000,000 or more (2 million miles is 0.00000034 light years).
minus-squarepsychothumbs@lemmy.worldOPlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up0·9 months agoI guess you could argue it’s many many millions of miles, doesn’t have to exclude the total being in the billions, trillions or beyond. Though now I’m trying to think if there is any unit of measurement that it would be literal millions of away. Light seconds maybe?
minus-squareFaceDeer@kbin.sociallinkfedilinkarrow-up0·9 months agoThere’s ~31 million seconds in a year, so that’s getting closer.
minus-squarepsychothumbs@lemmy.worldOPlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up0·9 months agoHmm so that overshoots a little into billions of light seconds. I’ve got it: millions of light minutes away! (70ish million if my math is right)
minus-squarejkrtn@lemmy.mllinkfedilinkarrow-up0·9 months agoReading your comment is the most I have ever felt the “wow, space is incomprehensibly large” feeling.
minus-squareSkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up0·9 months agoYou might think it’s a long way down the street to the chemists, bur that’s just peanuts to space
Which is funny because that would have been even more inaccurate. “Millions of light years” is off by a factor of 15,000 or more. “Millions of miles” is off by a factor of 400,000,000 or more (2 million miles is 0.00000034 light years).
I guess you could argue it’s many many millions of miles, doesn’t have to exclude the total being in the billions, trillions or beyond.
Though now I’m trying to think if there is any unit of measurement that it would be literal millions of away. Light seconds maybe?
There’s ~31 million seconds in a year, so that’s getting closer.
Hmm so that overshoots a little into billions of light seconds.
I’ve got it: millions of light minutes away! (70ish million if my math is right)
Reading your comment is the most I have ever felt the “wow, space is incomprehensibly large” feeling.
You might think it’s a long way down the street to the chemists, bur that’s just peanuts to space