psychothumbs@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.worldEnglish · 4 months agoNASA found a super-Earth. It's in a tantalizing place.mashable.comexternal-linkmessage-square50fedilinkarrow-up1110arrow-down16cross-posted to: space@lemmy.world
arrow-up1104arrow-down1external-linkNASA found a super-Earth. It's in a tantalizing place.mashable.compsychothumbs@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.worldEnglish · 4 months agomessage-square50fedilinkcross-posted to: space@lemmy.world
minus-squarehelenslunchlinkfedilinkarrow-up51arrow-down2·4 months ago This rocky planet is in another solar system 137 light-years away From millions of light-years away, we can only see this distant world as a dark dot 🤔
minus-squarepsychothumbs@lemmy.worldOPlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up36·4 months agoHaha probably meant to write “miles” the second time
minus-squareFaceDeer@kbin.sociallinkfedilinkarrow-up16·4 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-squarejkrtn@lemmy.mllinkfedilinkarrow-up7·4 months agoReading your comment is the most I have ever felt the “wow, space is incomprehensibly large” feeling.
minus-squareSkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.worldlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up2·4 months agoYou might think it’s a long way down the street to the chemists, bur that’s just peanuts to space
minus-squarepsychothumbs@lemmy.worldOPlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up5·4 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-up3·4 months agoThere’s ~31 million seconds in a year, so that’s getting closer.
minus-squarepsychothumbs@lemmy.worldOPlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up5·4 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-squareSheeEttin@programming.devlinkfedilinkEnglisharrow-up2·4 months ago0.000137 millions of light-years
🤔
Haha probably meant to write “miles” the second time
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).
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
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)
0.000137 millions of light-years
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