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Baewrt Ardoj
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Speed of light – Is it possible that it could be one of the slowest things in the universe?
While researching and viewing solar flares from our own sun, I was completely amazed by the speed the solar flares are ejected. Then I started thinking about something interesting.
Pluto's distance from the Sun is somewhere from 4.4 to 7.4 billion kilometers. The speed of light travels at 300,000 km/sec. / 186,000 miles/sec or around 670,616,629 mph. Light, as we know it, takes around 6.8 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto. This will be the radius of our sample. So, it would be fair to say that light would take about 13.6 hours to travel the diameter of our solar system, assuming Pluto was the last planet in this sphere.
To me, something that takes 13.6 hours to travel from one point in our solar system to the other may seem fast to many people, but is it really?
Let’s now go back to that solar flare example from our sun. As a comparison, if we could somehow take a grain of sand (Just a gain) and put it as close to the sun as we can without actually touching the sun (assuming it would not just melt from the massive heat of the sun -- but only as a comparison for size purposes) it would be safe to say that a solar flare from our sun could travel the diameter of that grain of sand in less time than it would take to snap your fingers. Let’s say a 1/10 of a second for this example.
Now, I would like to step up the scale a little bit.
Let’s take the largest star we know of Vy Canis Majoris. Vy Canis Majoris would take 11,666,192,832,000,000 Earth's to fill that star. In comparison, our little solar system (the one that takes light 13.6 hours to cross the diameter) would look like a grain of sand next to this giant star. It takes 7 billion of our suns to fill up Vy Canis Majoris.
If our solar system is a grain of sand compared to the diameter of Vy Canis Majoris and we could put that grain of sand as close to Vy Canis Majoris without actually touching it, what would happen if the massive Vy Canis Majoris ejected a solar flare?
Would it be safe to say that the solar flare from Vy Canis Majoris would cross the diameter of that grain of sand in 1/10th of a second? About the time it takes to snap your fingers? Solar flares from stars are solar flares. They eject energy based on the mass of the star.
If this is the case, that grain of sand happens to be the diameter of our solar system.
But wait a minute? It takes light 13.6 hours to travel the diameter of our solar system (the grain of sand) and the solar flare of Vy Canis Majoris just crossed that distance in 1/10th of a second? That is more than a trillion times faster than the speed of light, as we know it.
Now let's take Vy Canis Majoris, the largest star we know of. What if in this vast universe we live in there is another star that would take 7 billion Vy Canis Majoris’s to fill? What if it produced a solar flare, as we call it?
Physics, as we are thought from our point of view seems to work fine in our little solar system, however, I believe our universe does not care about human logic and I also believe that the speed of light could actually be one of the slowest things in the universe.
I believe the speed of light is very fast but in the whole universe, could it really be one of the slowest speeds?
Perhaps constant is not constant at all? It is only constant as we know it.
Thanks
Rob~
While researching and viewing solar flares from our own sun, I was completely amazed by the speed the solar flares are ejected. Then I started thinking about something interesting.
Pluto's distance from the Sun is somewhere from 4.4 to 7.4 billion kilometers. The speed of light travels at 300,000 km/sec. / 186,000 miles/sec or around 670,616,629 mph. Light, as we know it, takes around 6.8 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto. This will be the radius of our sample. So, it would be fair to say that light would take about 13.6 hours to travel the diameter of our solar system, assuming Pluto was the last planet in this sphere.
To me, something that takes 13.6 hours to travel from one point in our solar system to the other may seem fast to many people, but is it really?
Let’s now go back to that solar flare example from our sun. As a comparison, if we could somehow take a grain of sand (Just a gain) and put it as close to the sun as we can without actually touching the sun (assuming it would not just melt from the massive heat of the sun -- but only as a comparison for size purposes) it would be safe to say that a solar flare from our sun could travel the diameter of that grain of sand in less time than it would take to snap your fingers. Let’s say a 1/10 of a second for this example.
Now, I would like to step up the scale a little bit.
Let’s take the largest star we know of Vy Canis Majoris. Vy Canis Majoris would take 11,666,192,832,000,000 Earth's to fill that star. In comparison, our little solar system (the one that takes light 13.6 hours to cross the diameter) would look like a grain of sand next to this giant star. It takes 7 billion of our suns to fill up Vy Canis Majoris.
If our solar system is a grain of sand compared to the diameter of Vy Canis Majoris and we could put that grain of sand as close to Vy Canis Majoris without actually touching it, what would happen if the massive Vy Canis Majoris ejected a solar flare?
Would it be safe to say that the solar flare from Vy Canis Majoris would cross the diameter of that grain of sand in 1/10th of a second? About the time it takes to snap your fingers? Solar flares from stars are solar flares. They eject energy based on the mass of the star.
If this is the case, that grain of sand happens to be the diameter of our solar system.
But wait a minute? It takes light 13.6 hours to travel the diameter of our solar system (the grain of sand) and the solar flare of Vy Canis Majoris just crossed that distance in 1/10th of a second? That is more than a trillion times faster than the speed of light, as we know it.
Now let's take Vy Canis Majoris, the largest star we know of. What if in this vast universe we live in there is another star that would take 7 billion Vy Canis Majoris’s to fill? What if it produced a solar flare, as we call it?
Physics, as we are thought from our point of view seems to work fine in our little solar system, however, I believe our universe does not care about human logic and I also believe that the speed of light could actually be one of the slowest things in the universe.
I believe the speed of light is very fast but in the whole universe, could it really be one of the slowest speeds?
Perhaps constant is not constant at all? It is only constant as we know it.
Thanks
Rob~