NavList:

What is more difficult to express visually is the distances between these bodies. One comparison I remember is that if the earth was the size of a pea the sun would be about the size of a basketball - some 46 metres away. And our nearest stellar neighbour, Alpha Centauri (Rigel Kentaurus) another basketball the distance between Sydney (Australia) and Singapore. For celestial bodies further away the usefulness of this scale breaks down, as the distances from the basketball in Sydney become, well, astronomic ..

At the other end of the size spectrum the story is curiously similar. The simplest atom is that of hydrogen, which has a single electron circling a nucleus. If that nucleus, once again, was the size of a small pea the electron would be about 175 metres away. This means that the desk in front of us, indeed all 'solid' matter, is overwhelmingly empty space.  Just like the rest of the universe.


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---