Look
into the sky and gaze at thousands of stars.
Just like our star (the
sun), Other stars in the universe have
a planet body orbiting. So just how far is
the nearest star? You might have heard that it’s
Alpha Centauri, just 4.37 light-years from Earth.
Let’s get sense of scale for just how far
this star really is. Think about the distance from the Earth to Pluto. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft travels at nearly 60,000
km/h. It will take more than nine years to make this journey when it arrives in 2015.
Traveling at this speed, to get to Alpha
Centauri, it would take New Horizons 78,000 years.
How far is a light year? Well, just 1 light
year is approximately 6 trillion miles away.
Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light-years
from earth, in terms of miles it is approximately
24 trillion miles away! I wonder if Wifi
would be available aboard the "New Horizons"?
After all it will be a pretty long trip!
