- #1
Planet meeko
- 2
- 0
- TL;DR Summary
- I am puzzled by great distances in space and how we perceive it
I'm past middle age, and it seems I should have fewer questions about life and the universe than ever. I have more now. For some reason this past year or so I've been absolutely consumed with trying to grasp the immensity of the universe and distances. For whatever reason, I'm having more difficulty with this than I did in high school physics. I'm not a kook nor by any means a flat-earther. I do believe it's more of a certainty now more than ever that life exists in many places in the universe. But mainly it's those distances that are nagging me. I find it harder than ever to imagine that we can actually see even a tiny dot of light that represents Jupiter or Saturn. 562 million miles away is a staggering, unimaginable distance. Yet every night I can look up and I'm told a particular point of light is, intact, that far away and I can clearly see it.
But the fact that I cannot see the beam of a flashlight from one side of my town to the other, even if there were no atmosphere because of the very small size of the light itself, makes it harder to believe I can see Jupiter or Saturn. In fact, I doubt my flashlight's light could be seen from one moon horizon to the other for the same reason and there's virtually no atmosphere there to distort or block it. So, how is it that we can see REFLECTED light from Jupiter from millions of miles away. It doesn't generate it's own light like a star. It seems that just the distance alone, atmosphere or no, would render it so very tiny, relatively, that even when its light eventually does reach the Earth it would be so small and so tiny we wouldn't be able to even see it with telescopes. I can see the rings of Saturn with just a cheap department store telescope! How is it possible that such a small magnification would allow me to even see that planet over a billion miles away??! It makes absolutely no sense to me.
I'm not senile! ;). But why is my mind turning on me like this? We shouldn't be able to see any trace of any object that far away, telescopes or not, in my mind. Of course this is a crazy assertion. Centuries of science and the most brilliant minds have told us we can see them and how far away they are. But I sat bolt upright in bed the other night wondering if somehow our science has fooled us into thinking our systems of measurement apply to space when they really don't and our calculations have misled our conception of those kinds of distances, that things we see in the night sky are actually much, much closer than the miles and lightyears away they are. Of course we've proven those measurements are accurate, we've sent rockets to explore and it was our calculations that got our instruments there because the science we've developed are proof that we have calculated this accurately.
So, why is this persistent notion that we're somehow wrong about all this somehow plaguing me? My dad was an aircraft carrier jet pilot and then engineer for Boeing and Lockheed until he retired. He had certain top secret clearance was all he shared when asked certain questions, especially about UFOs. He and I used to spend lots of time in summer looking at the night sky, him pointing out the fight patterns of satellites, talking about why life elsewhere was fairly certain. He even told me that there were things that people reported as UFOs might or might not be. That some could be made by us and some things that weren't made by humans were indeed flying around. This was before stealth bombers were unveiled as part of our military arsenal. And when I was a kid, from the first US rocket sent men into space he let us stay home any time there was a daytime launch from NASA after those were routine enough that they no longer let us watch them during class at school. So, I've always been fascinated with what's going on up there. ;)
So, anyone feel like trying to explain why this old lady is bothered that she can see Saturn with the naked eye, from one billion miles away? Anyone? Just for fun? It might help me sleep a little better.
Cheers, Space Fans!
Denise
But the fact that I cannot see the beam of a flashlight from one side of my town to the other, even if there were no atmosphere because of the very small size of the light itself, makes it harder to believe I can see Jupiter or Saturn. In fact, I doubt my flashlight's light could be seen from one moon horizon to the other for the same reason and there's virtually no atmosphere there to distort or block it. So, how is it that we can see REFLECTED light from Jupiter from millions of miles away. It doesn't generate it's own light like a star. It seems that just the distance alone, atmosphere or no, would render it so very tiny, relatively, that even when its light eventually does reach the Earth it would be so small and so tiny we wouldn't be able to even see it with telescopes. I can see the rings of Saturn with just a cheap department store telescope! How is it possible that such a small magnification would allow me to even see that planet over a billion miles away??! It makes absolutely no sense to me.
I'm not senile! ;). But why is my mind turning on me like this? We shouldn't be able to see any trace of any object that far away, telescopes or not, in my mind. Of course this is a crazy assertion. Centuries of science and the most brilliant minds have told us we can see them and how far away they are. But I sat bolt upright in bed the other night wondering if somehow our science has fooled us into thinking our systems of measurement apply to space when they really don't and our calculations have misled our conception of those kinds of distances, that things we see in the night sky are actually much, much closer than the miles and lightyears away they are. Of course we've proven those measurements are accurate, we've sent rockets to explore and it was our calculations that got our instruments there because the science we've developed are proof that we have calculated this accurately.
So, why is this persistent notion that we're somehow wrong about all this somehow plaguing me? My dad was an aircraft carrier jet pilot and then engineer for Boeing and Lockheed until he retired. He had certain top secret clearance was all he shared when asked certain questions, especially about UFOs. He and I used to spend lots of time in summer looking at the night sky, him pointing out the fight patterns of satellites, talking about why life elsewhere was fairly certain. He even told me that there were things that people reported as UFOs might or might not be. That some could be made by us and some things that weren't made by humans were indeed flying around. This was before stealth bombers were unveiled as part of our military arsenal. And when I was a kid, from the first US rocket sent men into space he let us stay home any time there was a daytime launch from NASA after those were routine enough that they no longer let us watch them during class at school. So, I've always been fascinated with what's going on up there. ;)
So, anyone feel like trying to explain why this old lady is bothered that she can see Saturn with the naked eye, from one billion miles away? Anyone? Just for fun? It might help me sleep a little better.
Cheers, Space Fans!
Denise