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Monday, February 20, 2006
Mork calling Orson
Come in, Orson. We're looking for you:
US astronomers have come up with a short list of five stars in the Milky Way galaxy that are most likely to support extraterrestrial life.
...Turnbull's list would enable astronomers to point telescopes toward the stars with the most potential of sending radio signals from extraterrestrial life.
...Among the most promising sun-like stars was beta CVn, about 26 light years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici. One light year is equivalent to 9.5 billion kilometers.
I think it's cool to look for life on other planets. We won't find anything in my lifetime, but 26 light years is quite close. Our galaxy is something like 100,000 light years wide. The closest star to our sun is 4.2 light years away.
What amuses me, though, is the utterly unhelpful translation of light years to billions of kilometers. You see this kind of thing all the time. For example, the wingspan of the Airbus A380 is almost the length of a football field. That's kinda helpful, because many people have an idea of how long a football field is. Far more, I believe, than have an appreciation for how far 9.5 billion kilometers is.
Because I'm such a helpful person, the distance from the Earth to beta CVn is 1.045 x 10^11 football fields (104,500,000,000). Which is, coincidentally, how far Brett Favre could throw a football on the moon.
