Archive for May 7th, 2008

How big is our solar system?

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Measuring the dimensions of our solar system brings up a question of preference. Are you interested in the diameter from the Sun to the outermost planet? To the innermost edge of the Kuiper Belt? To the outermost edge of the belt? To the Oort Cloud? Would you fully grasp the true scale even were I […]

Yet another week in space

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Well I suspected things would run long and they have. There’s simply so much out there and so many good questions about space that I’m going to continue the project into this week before changing topics. Even then I’ll have just scraped the surface and will have to come back from time to time to […]

What is an Astronomical Unit? How big is an Astronomical Unit?

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

When dealing with measurements on an orbital scale, you have to think big. As my previous astronomy posts have shown, the distances are vast. Though humans see and use numbers like million, billion and trillion all the time, our brains have a tough time conceptualizing what those numbers really translate to. How often, for example, […]