How far are the nearest stars?

The closest star is the sun

 

If the Moon Were Only 1 Pixel - A tediously accurate map of the solar system

Click on the planet links at the top.

 

Getting your X-Wing ready?

 

Or perhaps was 4.2 light years away. If it suddenly mysteriously vanished yesterday, we wouldn't know about it until sometime in 2023. It's not the vastness of the universe that blows my mind...it's that much of what we see of it from here on Earth isn't actually there any more.

 

The world is so god damn interesting.

 

All we gotta do is roll up space like a newspaper meant to slap your dog with, and poke through it with a hot needle. Then it's right around the corner.

 

Even our own sun, if it were to blow, we wouldn't know it for about eight minutes.

As an astronomy buff most of my life, getting to comprehend and understand the concept that anytime one looks through a telescope, they're looking back in time. Sometimes dozens, hundreds, thousands of years. But when we look beyond our Milky Way galaxy, we're looking back in time millions of years. The Hubble images show galaxies as they appeared hundreds of millions of years ago, and while they are still there, per se, they have evolved and also moved, although that would be such a slight relative motion that it would barely be noticeable.

On my astronomy forum, I would tell people who have taken breaks from the hobby not to worry. No matter how long of hiatus (one of mine was 15 years), all those objects will still be there, right where you left them.

In a philosophical kind of way, it's mind-boggling to think that those photons left that distant galaxy all those millions of years ago, traveled uninterrupted through the vastness of intergalactic space, entered our galaxy, then our solar system, bounced off the mirror in my telescope, then gently landed on my retina, for my and your viewing pleasure.

 

Indeed. Almost as mind-boggling as why the Star Trek band didn't have a bass player.

 

What I find even more mind blowing is not just that things exist as this scale but that we, as humans, have been able to detect things across 27 (ish) orders of magnitude, from the smallest particles, to the largest objects in space. Astounding.

Scale of the Universe | The Universe in Perspective | Small to Big Fun!

 

Scotty covers the bass no problem on his keyboard.
I just wish I could be around when we will be ready to meet aliens and get faster than light technology.
I would love a vacation on another planet.

 

What makes you so sure you aren't already?

 

Damn! We bass players are always being left out. To whoever was the technical director on that series........YOUR FIRED!

 

A vacation on another planet would be great but for now we have to settle for Walmart.

 

Okay people, just a warning... DO NOT PRINT THIS OUT.

 

The nearest star to me would be Alex Morgan. She also lives in Orlando.

 

Because you would still be feeding paper and cartridges into it this time next year?

 

Eight light-minutes away.