The CRYPT Mag

An Overview of the Solar System

The solar system consists of the Sun; the nine planets, more than 130 satellites of the planets, a large number of small bodies (the comets and asteroids), and the interplanetary medium. (There are probably also many more planetary satellites that have not yet been discovered.)

The inner solar system contains the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars:

The planets of the outer solar system are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto:

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Deep Space

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The above composite shows the nine planets with approximately correct relative sizes.

The average Human brain is used to working in measurements that we understand, trying to visualise the vast tracts of space can therefore be very confusing. We must remember that in space terms our Solar system is but an insignificant "pin prick" in outer space.

To try to better explain the vast distances involved, let us try an experiment (For this get yourself a ruler or tape measure).

Now! to help visualize the relative sizes in our solar system imagine a model in which everything is reduced in size by a factor of a billion.

Then the model Earth would be about 1.3 cm in diameter (the size of a grape). The Moon would be about 30 cm (about a foot) from the Earth. The Sun would be 1.5 meters in diameter (about the height of a man) and 150 meters (about a city block) from the Earth. Jupiter would be 15 cm in diameter (the size of a large grapefruit) and 5 blocks away from the Sun. Saturn (the size of an orange) would be 10 blocks away; Uranus and Neptune (lemons) 20 and 30 blocks away. A human on this scale would be the size of an atom but the nearest star would be over 40000 km away.

Now this simple experiment has helped us try to understand space distances, But Scientists require a much more detailed way of explaining or describing distance. The Light year.

A light year is a way of measuring distance. That doesn't make much sense because "light year" contains the word "year," which is normally a unit of time. Even so, light years measure distance.

You are used to measuring distances in either inches/feet/miles or centimeters/meters/kilometers, depending on where you live. You know how long a foot or a meter is -- you are comfortable with these units because you use them every day. Same thing with miles and kilometers -- these are nice, human increments of distance.

When astronomers use their telescopes to look at stars, things are different. The distances are gigantic. For example, the closest star to Earth (besides our sun) is something like 24,000,000,000,000 miles (38,000,000,000,000 kilometers) away.

That's the closest star. There are stars that are billions of times farther away than that. When you start talking about those kinds of distances, a mile or kilometer just isn't a practical unit to use because the numbers get too big. No one wants to write or talk about numbers that have 20 digits in them!

So to measure really long distances, people use a unit called a light year. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second (300,000 kilometers per second). Therefore, a light second is 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers). A light year is the distance that light can travel in a year, or:

186,000 miles/second * 60 seconds/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 24 hours/day * 365 days/year = 5,865,696,000,000 miles/year

A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers). That's a long way!

The current known furthest distance star (or current boundary of our known Universe) is about 13 billion light years away.

Living History.

Ok! lets try to explain this in a way that we can comprehend. A light year IS the distance light travels in a Year.

So lets say an "Inhabited Star/Planet" is 60 light years away from Earth. (This would be visable to the naked eye on a clear night)

On that Planet an astrologer is keeping an eye on our planet (Earth). In approximately a year and a half ...He would witness a sudden outburst of unexplained bright light coming from our Southern hemisphere.

WOW .. In 18 months time, he will witness the Atom Bomb exploding over Hiroshima (an event that occured before I was born).

Now reverse the proceedure ... A human is watching that star, and witnessing events that took place 59 years ago ...We are indeed watching LIVING HISTORY.
Technically speaking; If mankind invented a ship that could travel faster than the speed of light. Man could travel to a distant planet ..and watch Himself taking off ... He would be witnessing PAST Events.
If he then returned to Earth ... He could to watch himself leaving that planet .. He would have travelled from the FUTURE.