Was supercruising towards a distant station when I started to wonder about the distances involved & how they related to our own Solar System. So here's some stats, which might put some of those short or long flights into perspective:
Earth -> Moon = 1 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 1 second to arrive)
Sun -> Earth = 499 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 8.3 minutes to arrive)
Sun -> Pluto = 14810 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 4.1 hours to arrive)
Our nearest star system is Alpha Centauri, which is 137,812,320 Ls away (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 4.37 years to arrive)
Also, if you scaled the Earth down to the size of a grape, the sun has a diameter of about the height of a human & is around 150 metres away. At this scale a human is the size of an atom. Alpha Centauri is still however 40,000 km away!
In other words .... space is MASSIVE!!
Earth -> Moon = 1 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 1 second to arrive)
Sun -> Earth = 499 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 8.3 minutes to arrive)
Sun -> Pluto = 14810 Ls (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 4.1 hours to arrive)
Our nearest star system is Alpha Centauri, which is 137,812,320 Ls away (travelling at the speed of light, it would take approx 4.37 years to arrive)
Also, if you scaled the Earth down to the size of a grape, the sun has a diameter of about the height of a human & is around 150 metres away. At this scale a human is the size of an atom. Alpha Centauri is still however 40,000 km away!
In other words .... space is MASSIVE!!