Dont underestimate distance of Earth-like planets Published: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013 - 10:11 am Last Modified: Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013 - 11:01 am Re Kepler space telescope finds of Earth-size potentially habitable planets (Page A1, Nov. 5): Whereas the Kepler space telescope article is of great interest, lets not forget the insurmountable distance of travel it would take to reach these possible planets. A light-year equates to 5.8 trillion miles. Twelve light-years (to the nearest possible planet) would compute to 70.5 trillion miles. To date, the highest speed any Earth spacecraft has ever traveled is 35,800 miles per hour in the case of the New Horizons probe, launched in January 2006. The estimated distance to the nearest ocean planet (70.5 trillion miles) divided by the velocity of the New Horizons probe (313.6 million miles per year, which is 35,800 mph times 24 hrs per day times 365 days per year) means it would take approximately 225,000 years to travel to this just around the corner planet. Then what? -- John Gohn, Rocklin © Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved. Read more here: sacbee/2013/11/05/5883136/the-distance-of-travel-to-newly.html#storylink=cpy
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 17:55:09 +0000
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