'Most distant' Solar System object identified:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34787422
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34787422
Astronomy / Space Astronomers have identified the most distant object yet in the Solar System
- Thread starter CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE
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Thanks for sharing! What an incredible discovery. The distances in question are simply baffling. The way the article is worded, I thought they were suggesting that it also had a moon, but were actually talking about Eris' moon. I wonder if it'll appear in-game eventually?
A magnificent discovery in our solar system. Long distance to find an object as small. But do not forget that the current technology allow to "see" in the universe up to 44 billion light years
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Is it me, but I have a problem visualising billions of km. Why can't they use Ls instead?I make it roughly 51000Ls with some generous rounding, or about 0.5% of a Hutton Orbital trip.
We should petition NASA to start measuring the universe in HOTs - Hutton Orbital Trips
We should petition NASA to start measuring the universe in HOTs - Hutton Orbital Trips
Yes!
that would be good to use in every day parlance. "We're going on a road trip, bruh" "How many HOTs is it, bruh?" "Like 10, bruh" "bruh."
Is it me, but I have a problem visualising billions of km. Why can't they use Ls instead?
Not just you.
There are alternatives, one of the easiest is the Astronomical Unit, taken as nominal 150,000,000 KM being the nominal mean distance between the Earth and the Sun.
On this basis these are the comparative distances of the major Solar bodies. All but one, being Planets.
Voyager 1 20,000,000,000 km. 133.3 AU
Object 1 15,500,000,000 km. 103.3 AU
Eris 14,460,000,000 km. 96.4 AU
Pluto 5,913,000,000 km. 39.4 AU
Neptune 4,499,900,000 km. 30 AU
Uranus 2,870,300,000 km. 19 AU
Saturn 1,427,000,000 km. 9.5 AU
Jupiter 778,140,000 km. 5.1 AU
Mars 227,840,000 km. 1.5 AU
Earth 149,570,000 km. 1 AU
Venus 108,110,000 km. 0.7 AU
Mercury 57,950,000 km. 0.4 AU
150000000 km = 1 AU
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No, think of 1 AU as being the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Stand outside and face the Sun. That is the perspective of 1 AU.
Stick with one comparison.
That's the principal of all measurement.
A standard comparison.
You live in the country that had a revolution to create the SI. Now you want to complicate it? Danton would turn in his grave.
I know, that's why I cited Danton.
Such a lovable rogue. And a Great French man. I say!What I like about AU is they give a numerical figure for comparison. 1 for good old Planet Earth. 1.5 for Mars and almost 40 for Pluto.
40 times! (punches air!)
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Thanks for that I had missed it
AU and parsecs are holdovers from how astronomical distances were calculated in the past. Using geometry, it was relatively easy to figure out distances relative to Earth's distance from the Sun, even before people knew how far that distance actually was. But now that we do know Earth's distance from the Sun, we can use a more "universal" measure, especially in a futuristic sci-fi setting. Kinda like star dates in Star Trek. But since there aren't really any aliens in ED (there's Thargoids, but human civ isn't integrated with any aliens), it's a bit more believable that things would still be Earth-centric compared to Star Trek.
True. But the issue was Porina having a problem visualising the universal measure.
The advantage of AU is it is relatively easy to understand and has numbers small enough to grasp.
Moreover, or perhaps, more importantly, it is more relevant to the needs of almost every human since few of us will ever need anything more accurate than AU.