Before going into the numbers, I would like to remind you of Arthur C Clarke’s “First Law” as I will be touching on this in what follows. Clarke says,

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, (s)he is almost certainly right.  When (s)he says it is impossible, (s)he is very probably wrong.”

And with that, onto the explanation…

Distance Not Time

A Light Year is a measure of distance, not of time.  It is the distance travelled by light in one year as it barrels along at the not insignificant velocity of 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second.

Let’s start by looking at the numbers.

186,000 miles per second = 6.7 x 10⁸ miles per hour = 5.87 x 10¹² miles per year ((10² = 100, 10³ = 1,000 and so on.))

It would take one second for a beam of light to travel seven and a half times around the Earth at the equator.

It takes light 1.3 seconds to travel from the moon to the Earth, 8.3 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth, and 5 hours and 20 minutes to travel from the Earth to Pluto.

A Light Year is equivalent to 5.87 x 10¹² miles (or, if you like lots of zeros,  5,870,000,000,000 miles).

The Nearest Star 

After the Sun, the nearest star to us is Proxima Centauri (visible from the Southern Hemisphere) at a distance of 4.22 Light Years.  For arguments sake, suppose we can travel a million miles in a day (approximately 42,000 miles per hour).   At that rate it would take us 67,817 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

Let’s go faster, let’s travel at 100,000 miles per hour.  Travelling at 100,000 miles per hour it would only take us 28,253 years to reach Proxima Centauri.

The above velocities are so much slower than the velocity of light that we can’t rely on Einstein and Special Relativity making these journeys appear any shorter.  Even at these “low” velocities, tiny fragments of interstellar material would still cause considerable damage to our spacecraft.

Clarkes First Law

So, even with Clarke’s warning I have to say that although I am neither distinguished nor elderly, I think I am a reasonable approximation to a scientist. 

I believe that if there is a God, then this Being has been amazingly clever in placing any other [non-terrestrial] civilizations at such vast distances that we will never be able to physically meet [yes - I am saying this is impossible].  This is to me actually very reassuring. 

After all, history shows us that we haven’t fared too well in meeting other slightly more diverse cultures on the same planet, so what chance do we have of having a pleasant interaction with completely alien species?

It is appearing today in the Southern Daily Echo in both online and printed versions.  I’ve scanned the printed article and you can see the pages below (Please Note: the article is copyright Southern Daily Echo)

A very big thank you goes to Astronomy Now magazine who advertised this event in the August 2007 issue – many people who attended the Friday night opening had their Astronomy Now in hand

A “virtual” tour of the exhibition is attached to show you what you are missing

Met up with some mates I hadn’t seen in a long time, as well as some of the Trade delegates who have supplied me with superb equipment. 

A Professor of Computing helped me out when the first PowerPoint slide didn’t appear to fire off the soundtrack, and once that was sorted, we were off. 

Drinks, lots of discussion, and plenty of questions, including the inevitable “are the colours real?” 

Don’t forget – the Exhibition runs until Friday 24th August, admission £1 only with children free – 10.30a.m. until 4.30p.m. every day.

The exhibition is in support of the Brockenhurst Village Trust Stage Completion Project and is kindly sponsored by Exxon.

It will be open from the 18th August 2007 until the 24th August 2007 between 10.30am and 4.30pm.  Admission is £1 for adults and children admission is free.

We will be showing our latest images and Greg will be giving a talk about imaging deep-space objects (DSOs) at 7.30pm on the opening evening (definitely something not to be missed).  Opening night charges are £5 with free admission for Trade and Press delegates.

Note: Bar facilities will be available on the opening night only. 

So, please come down and have a look, ask questions and mix with other Astronomy enthusiasts! Download the Starscape Brochure to find out more about what we will be showing – but note – there are 19 new images to see in the Exhibition that you won’t find in the brochure!

Click the download icon to download a PDF version of the brochure.